Raging Storm
by mageofpie
Summary: Her parents had feared their daughter, locked her up to contain the powers she held, and it only made her that much stronger. AU where Elsa's years in isolation took their toll on her. Dark!Elsa and Dark!Anna. Eventual elsanna. M for many, many deaths to come and future frick fracking :V
1. Chapter 1

Raging Storm

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Chapter 1

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Elsa had stood with her head against the door, tracing the patterns in the wood with her gloved finger for god knows how long. Not that she cared much for time, the days inside her room had already began to blend into one, indistinguishable mess of moping around and studying many years ago, so why should a few idle moments bother her now?

The only sound in the room was the ticking of a grandfather clock and the princesses own, quiet breathing.

Princess… that wasn't right, some part of her brain noticed. The nagging sensation that she'd missed something important increased the more her thoughts evaded her and Elsa thought that this sensation was becoming more common than she would have liked and how long had she been lying on the floor exactly? Her eyebrows furrowed as she stared at the celling, staring at the patterns engraved into it like she had a million times before. Things like this had been happening a lot too; not remembering moving from one place to another. The sudden lapse in memory didn't concern her as much as it probably should have but these episodes of memory loss had become more and more frequent after the death of her parents, the king and queen.

_Queen, queen, queen, ah yes, that's right._

Elsa let out a humorless laugh and rolled onto her side to stare under her bed.

_It's my coronation tomorrow._

The thought didn't rouse anything in the girl like it should have. Platinum hair fell into her eyes but Elsa made no indication to move it and simply rolled over to her other side and read the clock.

11 in the morning.

She had been up since 6.

Had she really spent half her day lying on the floor?

'_How improper of me…' _she thought dryly. Had she even had breakfast? Did it matter?

The blonde suddenly sat up and looked down at herself, fully clothed in a white dress and black bodice. Evidently she had changed at some point during the morning but could disturbingly not remember doing so.

Maybe she'd slept in these clothes. Or maybe she was finally losing her grip on reality from the years of isolation.

_Finally? Oh, please, it got to you years ago, you idiot._

And if the self-deprecating voice in her head was anything to go by she'd say it was right. So many times had Elsa tried to justify herself by thinking that shutting everyone out protected them. Protected them from her.

Elsa laid an arm across her eyes and sighed.

Despite the fact that tomorrow was probably going to be the most nerve racking thing the young woman had ever done in her short, sad life, Elsa couldn't bring herself to move. All of her grooming and education and posture lessons and all that other nonsense had been for this moment, and here she was, laying on the floor, hair in a lose mess around her head, feeling sorry for herself yet again.

How pathetic she must look to her deceased parents.

Elsa paused at the thought of her parents and their… well, their dead-ness.

She never did attend the funeral, too struck with emotion to do anything. Sure, she had grieved in her own time but there was a small part of her, a small, nagging part of her that was so disgustingly _relieved _at her late parents' death. Relieved at the fact that she would no longer have to hear her father's mantra of supposedly helpful phrases to dull Elsa's powers, or look at her mother's pitiful gaze like she was some wild animal that refused to be tamed or reasoned with.

Her parents had feared their daughter, locked her up to contain the uncontrollable, and it only made her that much stronger.

Elsa had had three years to think about this and in that time had come to realise that suppressing her powers was probably the worst thing her father had ever asked her to do. She imagined that all these years, all thirteen of them, had been a complete and utter waste of time and it made her mad.

_If they had just let me _be_, if they had just let me _practice_ in the open, instead of locking me up like a _freak show_, like a _demon_, like a _pathetic_, _useless_, _spineless_, stupid fuc-_

Maybe then, she wouldn't have had to leave Anna.

Anna.

Her baby sister had always been there even though there was a wooden slab between them. The blonde remembered the earlier days of her confinement, when the younger girl would knock on her door in the way she always used to, believing that Elsa would only be away from a few days, a few weeks tops. The small smile that Elsa had allowed herself dropped from her features and was replaced with a stoic mask. She remembered Anna, in all her optimistic glory slowly lose hope that she would ever see her older sister again. She remembered how the knocks on her door became less and less frequent until they became only a weekly occurrence. Remembered how the joyful "Do you wanna build a snowman?" gradually turned into a desperate plea and sometimes the broken voice of her sibling made Elsa want to wrench the door off its hinges and embrace the somber girl and tell her that she loved her and she always will and no door or strict parents would ever come between them. But she couldn't.

The fear that something might happen to her sister overpowered her craving to comfort the destroyed girl outside. Nightmares about the night she nearly took her sisters life became a regular occurrence and all Elsa had to do was remember the shock of white hair that dared nestle itself in Anna's fiery locks and the older girl managed to banish thoughts of comfort from her mind, if only for a few seconds.

She wouldn't hurt her sister like that again.

She _couldn't_.

She would protect Anna, like older siblings should, and if locking herself away to keep Anna out of harm's way was the way to go then so be it.

Three sharp knocks on her door derailed Elsa's train of thought, abruptly making the young woman sit up at breakneck speed in shock. She stared at the painted white door with wide, blue eyes and tried to slow her thudding heart down. No one had knocked on her door in at least a month… or was it two?

Someone outside coughed nervously which seemed to break Elsa from her shocked trance and she quickly glanced at the clock.

_12 o'clock?! No way that much time pa-_

Her confused inner monologue was cut off by a muffled, feminine voice.

"Y-Your majesty, I h-have your tea for you…" The girls voice was timid and shook on every word, stuttering awkwardly on a few like the queen-to-be would be offended by one of them. Which Elsa supposed was understandable since she had been purposefully avoiding human contact for some time now.

"Not right now, I'm busy." Elsa lied, wincing at the sound of her crackly voice from its lack of use. Furrowing her brow, the girl found herself wondering why the voice sounded so familiar. It felt like she had been chasing memories her whole life, like they were always right on the tip of her tongue but she could never get the words out. The sound of clattering pottery outside indicated that whoever was out there hadn't left yet.

"Are… Are you sure? Because I-I really think you should have it before it gets… gets cold…" Elsa scowled at the door.

_This girl's got a lot of nerve to talk back to me right now._

"I said not right now! Are you deaf? Now leave, I have many things to prepare for tomorrow." She snapped curtly in a sudden display of irritation. Elsa never really used her royal status to order anyone on the staff to do anything but it seemed like now her nerves for tomorrow had decided to make an appearance and she didn't need some flippant girl talking back to her and-

The memory of whose voice it was crashed into her like a charging bull and made the words get caught in her mouth, their own sharpness cutting her throat.

It was her sister's.

Almost immediately Elsa's mouth went painfully dry and her heart stopped beating for a second or two which would have concerned her if she hadn't just _yelled at her baby sister for trying to give her some tea_. The silence from outside was the most disturbing thing the cowering blonde had heard in her life.

Gracelessly crawling to the door, legs getting tangled in her skirt, Elsa stared wide eyed through the key hole only to see the fabric of Anna's dress and how it trembled slightly.

_Oh god, oh god what have I done, oh _god _what am I going to do._

She pressed a shaking hand to her mouth the hold in the sounds that threatened to breach the piercing silence. Elsa briefly saw a flash of red hair as Anna bent down to place the tray in front of her sister's door and quickly stood up again.

It didn't take Elsa long to realise that she had probably just broken the few remaining fragments of her and the princesses relationship. The only person she had ever loved, ever cared about really, had just been told by Elsa herself to get away from her like she was as lowly as dirt.

She felt like she was going to be sick, a wave of nausea crashed into the girl's already shaking form, not even realising that Anna had already walked off with tear stained cheeks until she looked out the keyhole again only to find the redhead gone and the sound of hurried footsteps ringing in her ears.

A thought briefly crossed over Elsa's clouded mind, wondering why Anna had addressed her by the frigid title of "_your majesty" _before realising that it was probably from the fact that Anna thought Elsa deemed herself too good for the redhead and locked herself away because of it. The thought was quickly banished from her mind before it caused any more damage to her already beaten emotions.

Elsa rolled over so her back was rested against the door, frost slowly creeping out from her body and up its surface. She kept her eyes tightly closed, face contorted into a pained expression like she had been the one victimised and not Anna who was now probably busying herself with hating the older girls guts. Her breathing became heavier and a shriek of anger erupted from her, slamming a fist against the door behind her like it would help any.

A sheet of ice shot out from where her fist made contact, effectively covering the entire wall in frost. Snow began to lightly fall but Elsa didn't notice, too busy staring at the doorknob with badly concealed longing. Getting up and standing on shaky legs, Elsa tugged at the iced over door until it gave and swung open to reveal a single tray. She stared at it a moment before quickly picking it up and slamming the door shut with her foot.

For a long while Elsa just stared at the tray and its contents, the cup of tea had already frozen over and she suspected the same could have been said for the pot next to it. The only thing that remained salvageable was the plate of chocolate chip cookies that now seemed to be welded together.

_She probably made those herself._

Elsa felt her breathing speed up and pressed her lips into a tight line.

_She probably got herself all prepped and ready to give these to you in person and you just told her to beat it._

She clenched her fists and rested her head against pulled up knees, hugging them to herself.

_What kind of big sister are you if you can't even protect her from yourself?_

In a final attempt to try and release her pent up emotion, Elsa violently kicked the tray away from her and let out a high pitched grunt of frustration. The indoor storm intensified. The pots crashed to the floor and smashed which felt surprisingly good.

Elsa got up on unsteady legs as the snow whipped her already untamed hair about her head, icy blue eyes glazed over with an indistinguishable emotion in them. She kicked the tea pot across the room and felt the same satisfying sensation from before as it hit the wall, exploding into shards of ceramic. Her lips twitched into something of a deformed grin for only a brief moment before reverting back to the hauntingly stoic expression. The next few seconds felt like a blur of smashed plates and cups, the euphoric feelings it gave the snow queen helping distract her from what had happened until she ran out of things to throw and picked up the metal tray only the launch it across the room and straight into a tall mirror that predictably shattered.

By the time Elsa had regained her breath and had risen from the hunched position she realised what she had done and simply wandered over to the broken mirror and picked up the tray from beneath the shards. Still breathing heavily, the blonde lifted the metal sheet to her face like it was a mirror in and of itself and tried to make out some kind of reflation in it. The thing was bent slightly in the middle and so distorted the image that was shown back to her but it was enough for Elsa to know that she probably looked crazed after that.

She dropped the tray with a '_clang' _to the floor and let out a dry laugh before stumbling to her bed over the broken pots, snow, and ice. The coolness of her room was comforting, the feeling of sub-zero temperatures as comforting to her as a blanket to a child.

She would find a way to clean the mess up when she woke up but for now Elsa just wanted to sleep, her dreams to be filled with herself, Anna, and a castle of ice.

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**Ugh, I'm so nervous about this fic, omg  
****I've never really done anything on this scale before and actually planned to finish it since I'm such a slow and sucky writer for which I apologise for in advance.  
****I appreciate criticism and support since I need both super duper badly.  
I also have NO idea where I'm going with this story other than serial killer!elsanna but I don't know how I'm gonna get there yet so ideas are much appreciated ^^**

**Anyway, uh, thank you for reading, I don't know when the next chapter will be out (if at all) but I hope you enjoyed despite my horrendously bad characterization and spelling and descriptions and writing of emotions and pretty much everything, yeah.**

**Mage**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

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Elsa stood in the center of the ballroom and stared up at where the ceiling should have been. The walls towered up and up and up until they disappeared into a murky darkness from which light snow fell. She looked down at her hands and noticed that even as the flakes landed on her she couldn't feel a thing.

_Am I dreaming?_

The question was absurd considering the last thing she remembered doing was collapse on her bed. There was no other plausible reason for any of this to be the way it was. Despite this, and knowing fully well that none of this was possibly real, Elsa felt a pang of fear shoot through her stomach when she caught sight of a single figure crumpled on the floor a few feet away, their small body curled up and shaking. A sickening feeling of déjà vu came over the young woman when muffled whimpering sounds starting coming from the form and morbid curiosity pushed Elsa into walking over to it.

"Hello?" she tried to say, her voice sounding like it was a million miles away even to her own ears. When the figure didn't respond with anything beyond whimpering sounds, Elsa swallowed thickly and edged closer. It felt like the void above her was beginning to lower and the walls were closing in, suffocating her.

Elsa could see more of whoever it was. White blonde hair similar to her own tied into two tiny pigtails, obviously the body of a little girl. The observation made Elsa's stomach lurch and her step faltered.

_Please no, not this one again, not this one…_

"E-Elsa…" The sound of her name made her jump, breathing becoming more erratic. The sound was muffled, like someone had put filters over her ears, but Elsa knew that it had come from the girl. Dropping to her knees, she cradled the body close to her.

It came as no shock to Elsa when she saw that the body was that of Anna's younger self.

"It's okay, Anna, I got you." She whimpered, voice shaking and suddenly sounding a lot younger. Anna shuddered violently and tried to curl into a tighter ball while Elsa shot her panicked gaze up towards the double doors. She looked down at her sister and then back at the doors before getting up and starting to run towards them as fast as she could with the extra weight.

"It's gonna be okay, Anna. You're gonna be okay. Papa will know what to do. You'll be okay." The words were mostly to calm herself since the shivering girl in her arms didn't seem to be listening. The blonde looked up from Anna's sickeningly pale face and noticed that she hadn't made any progress towards the doors. If anything she was getting further away. Her legs felt like they had lead weights on them and strangled noises of fear kept breaking through her lips. She just kept running, eyes fixated on the doors, willing them to come closer.

It was only when Elsa felt a small hand pat her cheek did her step falter and eventually stop. Anna had cracked her eyes open to reveal bright blue iris', just like Elsa's. Her stomach wrenched at the sight.

"Oh, gods. Oh, gods, Anna, I'm so sorry, Anna, I didn't- I didn't mean to, I-I…" She sobbed and clutched the girl closer to her, head lowering and eyes squeezed shut.

Anna's hand, still childlike and small, slowly began to fall off Elsa's cheek and the latter quickly grabbed it in her own, noticing how cold it felt. Another muffled sob wrenched through her, shoulders jumping.

The queen raised her tear stricken eyes to look at the younger girl and felt all remaining breath leave her.

Anna's body, in the few seconds between grabbing the girls hand and looking up, had completely turned into crystal clear ice.

Elsa stared at the almost tranquil expression in her younger sister's face for a moment before her breathing started up again in frenzied gasps and her mouth lay open in a silent scream. It took a few more moments for her body to actually move and lay the ice statue of Anna on the floor, not noticing that she had dropped to her knees again at some point.

With a shaking hand, she traced the adolescent curve of her sister's cheek and hiccuped. God knows how long she sat there, silently crying and staring at Anna's immobile form, but it was long enough for the walls and never ending ceiling to creep up on her and swallow both their forms into darkness.

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Elsa's eyes snapped open and stared up at the canopy above her bed. She didn't sit up or try to control her now erratic breathing but instead closed her eyes again and let the waves of sleep adrenalin surge through her before taking a deep, shaky breath and rolled herself to be sitting on the edge of the bed.

Slowly, Elsa opened her eyes again and noticed that her hands were bare on her lap. The gloves must have come off again while she slept, tossing and turning no doubt. The room was in the same state she'd left it in; messy and unorganized, her bed sheets revealing the night of torment she'd just gone through. She glanced at the clock.

_2 in the morning… I'm technically queen right now._

The young queen let out a dramatically long groan and flopped back onto the bed; arms spread wide and kicked her legs. Thoughts of the dream still plagued her mind and one particular moment kept swirling around in her head like stubborn soap bubbles in a bathtub drain. Elsa used the heel of her hand to hit herself not-so-lightly in the temple a few times like it would make the bad dream go away. She spent some time doing this, eyes trailing patterns in the folds of the canopy and attempting to knock out any thoughts of iced over sisters and never ending hallways.

About half an hour had passed until she fully got up off the bed and decided that there was nothing productive to do until 6 when Gerda would come and '_wake her up_' to get ready for the '_big day'_ ahead. Getting ready was composed of trying to get a corset on and then a long flowing ball gown complete with a train that stretched far too long in Elsa's own opinion. Then there was the _hair_, and the _makeup_, and the _fussing_, and the _cooing_, and the '_oh, you look so much like your mother, your majesty'_.

Elsa stared at the doorknob again and brushed her bare fingers against it and watched with dull eyes as frost began to form around it, starting with snowflake patterns before consuming each other into one big mess of ice. That's how it always happened. Her powers always started off beautiful but always ended up as something ugly, plain, boring. The young woman rolled her eyes and slumped back to the heap of sheets she called a bed and searched for her gloves, growing more impatient at their disappearance until she found them curiously at the bottom of the bed.

It wasn't long before Elsa had slid the gloves on and was now roaming the deserted corridors of the castle in an attempt to pass the time. Her dress was crumpled and her hair was a mess but she didn't particularly care since there were no servants or maids out at the late a time.

It was oddly peaceful… in an eerie sort of way.

The walls were decorated with everything from unlit lamps to large, ominous paintings of elders that used to walk these very halls; their hooded eyes seemed glared at the blonde as she scurried past. All the while Elsa was trailing her fingers over random stuff that they may come into contact with. After all these years she thought she would have been used to the barrier formed between her and the rest of the world but nope, it seemed her brain still hadn't come to terms with it. As much as she wanted to, and as much as it would amuse her greatly, Elsa felt it would be unfair to the staff for her to take her gloves off and turn the inside of the castle into a winter wonderland.

Plus, there was already one mess she had to explain and that wasn't going to be a cakewalk in and of itself.

With all these thoughts whizzing around her cluttered little brain, Elsa failed to notice that she had made a turn somewhere and has now standing face to face with Anna's door. Memories of the dream came rushing back and it almost caused her to collapse right there on the floor. Elsa's eyes were wide and she brought a hand to her mouth to try and stop the whine of soul crushing sadness escape her.

Against all better judgement, Elsa moved closer to the door until she was practically pressing her body against it like she could somehow morph through it.

_You shouldn't be here… not after what you did to her, you disgusting monster. There's no point in begging for forgiveness, she's probably asleep already._

Her forehead rested against the cool wood and the blonde cautiously rested her hand on the knob.

_Don't do it._

Her fingers gripped it and her wrist began to twist.

_Don't fucking do it._

With a click, Elsa slowly and quietly opened the door and stepped into the redhead's bedroom.

_You just did it._

A light snore could be heard coming from the mass of tangled limbs that was her sister and under any other circumstances Elsa might have laughed at the sight but right now was too busy trying to keep her labored breathing in check and not alert the slumbering girl that she was there.

The closer she got to the bed, the more apprehensive the queen got. Anna was facing the other way but was clearly clutching one of her many pillows like a life line, both her arms and legs wrapped around it. Elsa felt a smile tug at her lips for a moment before it was quickly wiped off and replaced with a brief look of horror when Anna suddenly rolled over and unhooked one of her arms from the pillow, hanging it off the side of the bed and nearly smacking Elsa on the leg.

Now that she could see the girls face Elsa noted that the younger girl's eyes were red around the outside and had still wet tear tracks laced across her freckled cheeks. That was the sight she was afraid of seeing and Elsa had to bite her tongue to avoid letting out another whimper.

Quickly, quietly, Elsa reached out with a tentative hand and laced her shaking fingers with Anna's. The effect was almost instant; the sleeping girl let out a groan and tightened her fingers around Elsa's own and pulled her hand back into the bed along with Elsa herself. The latter, who failed to keep in a squeak of surprise, felt her eyes widen and immediately dropped to her knees, crawling closer to the bed to avoid being dragged on top of her sister. Anna smiled in her sleep and snuggled closer to the older woman's hand, pillow forgotten behind her.

It was taking literally all of Elsa's willpower not to wrench her arm from the loving embrace and dart from the room before the princess woke up to a snow covered room and a lot of questions to be left unanswered. The only thing keeping her glued to the floor was the look of utter bliss on her sister's face.

Elsa knew that her sister probably wasn't even thinking about her right now and was simply latching onto the human contact. The fact that this was the first prolonged interaction with another person she'd actually had for months if not years didn't even seem to register with Elsa because she was too busy focusing on how Anna was _clutching her arm and pressing it against herself. _A little bit t_oo _close to herself actually.

But none of that seemed to matter right now.

With her other hand the blonde decided to push her luck. She was still trembling violently but managed to rest the other on her little sister's cheek and ran a gloved thumb over the still present tear trails. Her eyes glazed over with unshed tears.

_You made her cry._

The voice in her head was trying to break through the dam that kept them from spilling over. Elsa ignored it for now and instead began to trace her thumb along the curve of Anna's jaw and noticed how defined it looked compared to when they were younger. She also noticed how there were more freckles the bridged her nose and cheeks and shoulders. She noticed how her face had narrowed out; not by much but it was still noticeable.

Her baby sister had grown up.

And this was the first time she'd touched her in 13 years.

The dam broke.

Through a watery smile Elsa leaned forward and rested wobbling lips against Anna's forehead, hoping to the gods that she wouldn't wake up. Tears leaked down her face and stained Anna's sheets but she kept planting kisses on the girl's forehead, temples, cheeks.

"Anna, oh my god, Anna, Anna." She whispered feverishly, "Anna, I love you. I love you so much and I'm so, so sorry for what I did to you. It's unforgivable but I'm sorry, Anna, I'm so sorry." Through the tears and the whispering, her words barely came out at all and her voice broke on nearly every one, but she didn't care. She was touching her sister and even though Anna was asleep it still felt as though some of her mumbled apologise had gotten though. She hoped they did, anyway.

She sat there for what felt like hours just rocking and crying. With one final kiss to Anna's knuckle, Elsa carefully pulled her arm from the girl's embrace and felt a pang of guilt when said girl whimpered and rolled over the grab the pillow again.

Before she changed her mind, the queen swept gracefully out of the room and quietly shut the door before practically running back to her own room to clean up the mess she had made and wash her face of any remnants of tears.

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**I don't like the length of this chapter at all but I'm trying to keep to a schedule of updating at least once a week.  
... I also think this is kind of rushed but whatever.**

I want to thank you all for your supportive comments and all the follows and favorites I've gotten on this story already, it really means a lot to me ^^

**Also, some of you were worried that I was going to have Elsa immediately try to start killing people but don't you worry your pretty little heads, I have some of the story planned out already but I still appreciate ideas so yeah, keep 'em coming.**

**Mage**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

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_Is it even possible for one man to have that much facial hair?_

Elsa kept the hollow smile on her face as the visiting dignitary made a joke, probably, and laughed loudly with his wife. The frail little thing looked like she'd had the life force sucked out of her by the beast of a man next to her. His hair was long enough to have been put in a ponytail and grew down into sideburns that grew into a beard and moustache, the thing so big Elsa had a hard time hearing what he was saying. The newly made queen laughed politely along with him like she'd been taught to do and made another glance towards the doors she'd seen Anna gleefully skip out of with another gentleman she hadn't met that evening.

Whatever the man before her was saying slowly began to blur out into a huge jumble of muffled words and laughter. Elsa's mind began to drift to that night and how happy she had felt actually holding her sister, feeling her warmth even though the barrier of gloves. It was the first time in forever she'd actually felt some kind of heat flow through her.

Of course, looking back on the moment made it feel all the shorter and it would soon become a fond memory the women would look back on one day and wonder why she didn't do anything other than cry and whisper sweet nothings to a sleeping girl. Even when she was running back to her room, Elsa craved to go back.

She could have spent eternity there and been content but alas, reality was harsh and demanded attention like the stubborn child it was.

In the earliest hours of the morning Elsa had managed to clean up a majority of the smashed glass and ceramic from her bedroom floor and washed her face of crud. By that time some of the staff had woken up and could be heard running about outside her room in preparation for the ceremony. Gerda had knocked on her own door at about 6 and the blonde immediately opened it to find the middle aged maid and a gaggle of others all smiling at her with looks varying from adoration to slight jealousy at the fact that their new queen looked so good this early in the morning, little did they know.

All in all, the process of fitting and last minute etiquette practice took about an hour and by the end of it Elsa had finally began to feel the pressure that the day would bring.

A particularly loud bark of laughter brought her back to the present and Elsa blinked rapidly and snapped her eyes to the man before her, the king of somewhere or another. She couldn't really remember Kai introducing him to her.

"Well, your majesty, it's been an honour talking with you this fine evening. I'm glad to see that the gates have been opened after all these years!" The wolf man let out another obnoxious laugh despite there being nothing particularly funny about what he'd just said. Elsa merely nodded once and smiled again, hoping that he'd leave her alone in the next 5 minutes.

"Quite a shame they had to shut them in the first place, your majesty. 13 years is a long time, don't you think?" He quizzed, raising a bushy eyebrow at her. For a moment Elsa felt the urge to rip one of them off his face.

All evening people had been trying to coax an answer out of the women about why the gates of Arendelle's palace had been closed for these many years and to be quite honest she was becoming sick to the back teeth with it.

"Yes, quite a shame indeed. Excuse me, and please enjoy the rest of the party." She kept her voice low and steady, hopefully getting at across that this particular subject wasn't the best to bring up right now. The king's once cheerful demeanour vanished and he glared at the graceful woman as she walked past him, his wife doing the same and shivering at the sudden drop in temperature around them.

Once she was a safe distance away, Elsa let out a shaky sigh and slumped her shoulders. There was only so much questioning she could take before she said something she would regret. She quickly grabbed a glass of wine from a passing waiter and downed it in one, the bitter sweet liquid burning the back of her throat and causing her to grimace. She slammed the empty glass down on the table and leaned forward against it. Taking a few deep breaths to calm her nerves, Elsa felt a tap on her shoulder and groaned internally.

_For god's sake, what is it now?_

Upon turning around with a disgruntled sigh, Elsa was met with the concerned eyes of Kai and her expression immediately softened.

"Your majesty, are you feeling alright?" There was a slight edge to his tone and his eyes seemed to search Elsa's for something that he couldn't find.

"Y-Yes, I'm quite fine, Kai. It's just... I just need some air, that's all. It's quite stuffy in here, wouldn't you say? Far too warm for me." She cleared her throat and mumbled out her response before straightening up and striding away from a confused Kai, grabbing another full glass of wine from the table on the way to a staircase she knew led to a balcony over the gardens.

Night time had always been one of Elsa's favourite times of day. It was always so much quieter and peaceful, like she could actually think about things other than studies and powers, studies and powers, rinse and repeat. There used to be times when she was younger that she would recklessly try and find a way to get onto the roof of the castle and watch the stars, wondering if Anna kept her tradition of being awake because the sky was too. Alas, she never did, but the windows were always good substitutes.

Elsa rested the glass of wine on the side of the balcony and tried again to calm her breathing. Maybe this time she wouldn't be interrupted. She wasn't lying when she said it was too warm for her in there; the amount of people at the party and the closed space they occupied resulted in a boiling hot and unhappy Elsa. Rubbing one temple and taking a sip of wine, the queen closed her eyes and relished in the feeling of a cool summer breeze brush against her. It wasn't snow but she would take what she got.

She stood there for a while, sipping wine and listening to the sounds of music and loud chatter from the party that managed to reach her ears. Her head had begun to buzz as the alcohol that she downed before caught up to her and the wind suddenly felt amazing on her flushed skin. It seemed that the guests hadn't noticed the absence of their new queen from her own party.

The sound of giggling from the garden broke her thoughts. Elsa's eyes opened in search of the noises origin and landed on Anna and her new friend. A friend who was getting a little too close for comfort. They were walking along a path that snaked its way through the trees and plants and seemed to be enjoying themselves. The man leaned in and whispered something in Anna's ear which must've been hilarious because she immediately burst into a fit of giggles and slapped his arm, letting out a playful "Hans!"

_Hans..._ her eyes narrowed and she tried to breathe through her nose to avoid growling. She hadn't even realised spikes of ice had formed where her hands were even through the gloves.

_I don't like you, Hans._

He said something and she laughed, he said something else and she went bright red and laughed again, this time more awkwardly. They looked as though the evening had destined for them to be together, frolicking through the flowers and giggling like children.

How it made Elsa sick.

_Who the hell does he think he is?_

Anna giggled her adorable laugh again at something _Hans _had said and Elsa gripped the stone baluster harder, barely even noticing as vicious frost seeped out from under her hands. Apparently, her gloves were no match for the complete and utter loathing the women felt at the sight of someone else holding Anna's attention. In any other state of mind Elsa may have been able to reason with herself; she hadn't even met the boy yet, he was probably lovely. But the alcohol was saying otherwise.

At least, that's what she tried to convince herself it was.

There was something all too real about the emotions coursing through her. But thoughts like those would just have to wait since the queen was now trying to stop herself from freezing the whole balcony over.

_Conceal, don't feel. Conceal, don't feel. Conceal. Don't feel…_

Per usual, the ice didn't disappear but at least it had stopped spreading. All she had to do now was plug her ears for all eternity so she wouldn't be able to hear Anna's laugh and know that it wasn't her who caused it to happen.

Somewhere below, Elsa heard the sound of her sister squeal and saw that _Hans _had decided it would be a brilliant idea to pick her up from behind by the waist which had caused them both to delve into a fit of giggles.

_Conceal don't feel, conceal don't feelconcealdon'tfeel…!_

But felt she did, and conceal she did not.

Elsa managed to hide the growl of growing frustration and she managed to refrain from slamming her fists against the stone walls, but she didn't manage to avoid clenching her hands into tight balls and desperately searching around for an outlet before flinging a hand towards a flower pot and have the thing smash into fragments as an icy bolt hit it. The sound echoed throughout the otherwise quiet night and Elsa immediately cursed under her breath before pressing herself against the farthest wall from the edge of the balcony.

Anna and Hans' laughter had stopped dead and was replaced by a curious silence, but the queen didn't feel like hanging around long enough to have one of them spot her and question why she was standing on a frost covered balcony with a smashed plant pot, spying on them.

By the time Anna had stepped back far enough to see onto the balcony Elsa had already fled down the stairs and back to the crowded party, leaving nothing of her visit but a half empty wine glass and another mess to be cleaned up.

* * *

_Okay, so I guess the gloves don't do much now either…_

Elsa stared down at her hands with a frown and flexed her fingers, wondering why she hadn't noticed her powers become strong enough to make their way through fabric now.

After racing her way down the stairs, nearly tripping over her own train several times, the blonde straightened her crown and dress before coming into view of the still crowded ballroom. She was fairly certain the visiting dignitaries had already powered through half of Arendelle's glogg and mead and were now beginning to clumsily make their way outside for some fresh air to sober themselves up.

Looking up from her hands, Elsa caught the eye of Gerda who was standing on the other side of the ballroom, manning the food. She powered her way through the crowd of drunk royals and tried to avoid getting caught up in conversation with any of them.

"Gerda." Elsa muttered breathlessly. The woman looked up at her with concerned eyes.

"Are you alright, your majesty?" She asked, her voice taking on the same tone Kai had used earlier. It felt like there was a secret code among the servants that made them all subconsciously cautious of the queen.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. Do you know who the… _gentleman _Anna left with was?"

Gerda furrowed her eyebrows, "That was Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, your majesty. They're one of our trade partners and he's their youngest son."

Elsa tried to keep her expression passive but was internally trying not to demand they cut ties with the Southern Isles immediately because of their son's inexcusable behaviour, "Right, yes, of course…"

There was a brief silence.

"… is there any particular reason, your majesty?" Gerda pressed, raising one of her eyebrows.

"Hm? Oh, no, not really just… curious… excuse me a moment…" Elsa trailed off as she began to drift back into the ballroom. Behind her, Gerda kept her eyes glued to the back of the new queen's head for a moment before quickly scurrying off to find Kai.

Elsa decided that to keep her mind off the subject at hand she'd try and find some other people to talk to; maybe their mindless babble will lower her brain function enough to forget the whole ordeal. She had circled the room twice before being dragged into a conversation with a man with a strong accent that was hard to decipher and another, taller man who hardly spoke at all. By the time she heard someone call her name she's already regretted the idea to talk to anyone in the first place long ago.

The voice was easily recognisable as Anna's and that fact alone caused Elsa to whip her head around so fast she feared it may have twisted right off. Her eyes met Anna's own, the turquoise pools filled with so much excitement and happiness that the older woman felt the urge to smile dopily along with her. A part of her knew that she would never be good enough of a sister to make up for her infinite mistakes towards the smiling girl before her.

God knows what she had done to deserve such a loving soul in her life.

Even after everything that had happened the day before, after Elsa had started up a conversation with the adorably nervous girl she looked overjoyed to even be acknowledged by the queen. While that fact made her heart ache in sorrow she couldn't help but grin when Anna had begun excitedly talking about how "beautifuller" Elsa looked which made it all the more painful to push her away not 5 minutes later.

She was so focused on her sister's face and its emotions that she barely even noticed that the princess was dragging a flustered looking redhead behind her.

"Elsa! I-I mean, queen…" Anna curtsied politely and quickly corrected her outburst, still managing to hold onto Hans' arm. She didn't notice the brief flash of hurt cross Elsa's features before it was covered by her regal mask again, "Me again. Uh…" Anna giggled awkwardly and pulled Hans forward, the man in question stumbling and blushing before the stoic blonde.

Anna made a dramatic flourish of her hand and gestured it towards Hans's face, "May I present Prince Hans of th-"

"Of the Southern Isles. I know." Elsa finished, giving him a once over with a blank expression and an icy glare before sniffing and turning her attention back to Anna. She chuckled internally when she noticed how Hans lowered his posture and shivered slightly under her gaze, smiling sweetly at a now confused Anna.

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"Oh, I have my sources…" The blonde winked and briefly directed her gaze to Gerda who was now standing at the back of the room with Kai. She frowned slightly when she noticed that the two of them were talking quickly to each other while sparing glances towards the woman in question. When the older maid noticed Elsa's staring she nudged Kai in the gut and quickly walked away from him while he continued to stand at the back and divert his gaze to anywhere else in the room but her.

"Oh, okay… but that doesn't matter right now! We have some wonderful news, Elsa!" She snapped her eyes back to Anna who by now was practically jumping up and down in excitement. Despite herself, Elsa smiled warmly at the sight and raised an eyebrow in question.

"We would like-"

"-your blessing-" Hans cut the younger girl off and they both looked at each other, giggling.

"-for…" Elsa felt her gut drop.

"Our marriage!" The couple sighed in unison and held onto each other's arms like love sick puppies.

Elsa stared at the two in a state of shock, her brain still trying to catch up and process the request. While she stared, the platinum haired woman felt her whole being crumble and her chest tightened in a way she hadn't felt in years.

"M… Marriage…?" Her voice came out an octave higher than she would have liked.

"Yes!" Anna squealed, gazing up at Sideburns McGee like he was the last chocolate on the platter. Elsa continued to stare, but this time at Hans who was looking at her with such a hopeful gaze she almost threw up. All at once, the feeling of shock left her to be replaced with slowly brewing anger and her vision began to become clouded. Anna was going to leave her, and it was all his fault.

_Get your disgusting hands off my sister right now._

"I'm sorry, I'm confused." She grit out through clenched teeth but neither of them seemed to notice. Anna then burst into speech, her eyes lighting up with excitement that used to be directed at her. At Elsa. And now it was all at _him_. _He _who thinks he can swoop in now and take her beloved sister away from her.

He who thought it was completely okay for him to slide one of his hands onto Anna's hip.

_Get your hand off her hip._

Her sister was still bubbling about wedding preparations while Hans egged her on.

_Get your fucking hands off her hips right now or I'll get them off for you._

Whatever was going on in the reality felt a million miles away as Elsa's sole attention was on Hans' filthy hands man handling her sister like she was nothing but a prize to be put on his arm. Red began to seep into her vision and it felt as though breathing was becoming more of a chore than to calm herself down, but by this stage she was beyond the point of safe return.

_If you don't move your hands I'll move them for you, I swear I will, just move them, move your fucking hands, move your _fucking _hands, __**get your hands off my sister.**_

Elsa sucked in a sharp breath and stared at Hans with such loathing and malice she didn't notice how quiet everyone had suddenly gotten; how the music had stopped and the chatter died down into nothing. How everyone in the room was staring at her with expressions of either shock, confusion, or both.

The silence pierced her ears.

Her expression slowly softened as Elsa stared around at the other party goers. Some of them had begun whispering among themselves and trying to point discretely at the queen. A wave of anxiety washed over her and Elsa clutched her clenched hands to her chest, her head whipping back and forth before slowly resting her wild eyes on the pair in front of her.

Anna stared at her older sibling with a look that could only be described as complete and utter bewilderment while her eyebrows arched so far up they almost disappeared into her hairline. Hans' hand was now hovering above Anna's hip and his face was contorted into an expression of fear, his other hand gripping his own lapel tightly.

"Elsa… what…?" Anna was the first to speak, her voice almost too loud after the brief intermission of silence. On Elsa's name it cracked and the women felt her heart break all over again before seizing up in realisation, catching her breath as it dawned onto her face what had just happened.

_Oh… ooooooh no…_

"What do you mean… get off… me…?" Anna coaxed, stepping towards her trembling sister slowly and held her hands out to try and hold Elsa's arms. Elsa herself was too mortified to move or object and so it caused her even more shock when she felt Anna's warm hands lightly grab her covered arms. The princess stared up at her with those damn eyes again and Elsa swallowed hard and tried to form a reasonable explanation but ended up opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water. The sound of hurried footsteps from behind her seemed to bring the blonde out of her stupor and felt herself being dragged away from Anna who was still holding her hands out.

"W-We formally apologise for her majesty's behaviour." A women stuttered out, probably Gerda. Elsa's eyes lowered to the floor slowly to the floor, still wide with horror.

"Yes, too much wine, you see." A man explained, laughing awkwardly at the end of his sentence. She raised her gaze to look at Kai, now nervously smiling at the staring dignitaries who frowned in disapproval at the young queen, shaking their heads and muttering again. Always with the muttering.

When she looked up at Anna in a last, desperate attempt to confess her apologies through her eyes Elsa noticed that Hans had put his hand right back where it was before, holding down Anna's own with it, the other clutched to his chest where it also held her sister's other hand. All at once, the anger that had been subdued by her little accident came surging back with force.

Elsa bared her teeth and suddenly fought against Gerda and Kai's hands to try and grab at the prince before her.

"_**I said get off her, you disgusting cretin!**__"_

The voice didn't sound like her own, instead taking on a noise similar to a snarling wolf and her expression mimicked it. Her blood boiled, ironically enough, and in an uncharacteristic burst of strength wrenched her arms from her staff's hands causing them to stumble back with terror etched onto their faces.

Elsa stalked forward with the grace of a house cat but the ferocity of a mountain lion, her eyes never leaving Hans' who had now leapt away from her sister and was holding out his hands in a mock surrender, muttering out frantic apologies and seemed to be on the verge of tears. Even though he was taller that the woman she still towered over him and felt her grab one of his outstretched arms in an iron grip.

For a second nothing happened, and Hans felt himself relax somewhat. The queen may have looked threatening but there was no way she could bring harm to a man of such a bigger physique.

And then he felt it.

His fingers began to tingle with numbness that slowly began to spread through his hand. He could feel icy tendrils slither their way through his every nerve and felt a pain shoot through them. Panic consumed his rational thought and the prince began panting out pained moans which slowly escalated into screams of terror. But the numbing pain spread, spread from the tips of his fingers down in to his palm, and then his wrist.

"_What are you doing!? Someone, get her off me! What are you doing to my hand!? Let me go! Let me _go_!_" His voice broke and Hans desperately tried to tug his hand away from the blonde's grip but he felt nothing from the elbow down and only succeeded in falling to the ground while everyone else in the room watched on in muted horror.

Elsa felt her lips twitch as the same feeling of mirth filled her. The same feeling from when she smashed the tea set. The feeling of power of something; the thought that she could end this man's life right now with a literal flick of her wrist and it would be over just like that. A blurred darkness that had crept around the corners of her thoughts ever since childhood seemed to becoming more prominent, bolder. It was only when she felt desperate yanking of her shoulder did she blink and turn her head, drinking in the sight of Anna yelling at her to stop it, stop it now. Tears had spilled over the younger girls eyes and Elsa's hearing slowly came back to her and drank in the horrible sounds of a sobbing Anna.

It was like someone had flicked a switch in Elsa's brain and the woman immediately dropped Hans' arm and turned her attention to her sister who quickly stumbled backwards in fright when she advanced towards her. Behind the queen, Hans slid himself away from her and cradled his arm which, awfully enough, he could no longer feel.

Elsa cupped Anna's tear streaked face in her hands and quickly tried to wipe them away as the latter stared up at her in a terrified silence.

"Shhh, it's okay now, Anna. I won't hurt you, not now, not ever again, don't worry. Shhh…" Elsa cooed, smiling warmly down at her baby sister who only hiccuped and trembled.

A piercing scream broke their eyes from each other and both girls looked towards the noise to see a woman covering her mouth with one hand and with the other, pointing towards where Hans sat, shell shocked on the floor and leaning on a pillar to stop himself fainting.

On the floor lay his pristine white glove which had been covering a stump of a wrist, blackened with frostbite. Apparently, his severed hand was still inside the glove itself.

Elsa looked down at her handiwork, pun not intentional, and raised an eyebrow. That wasn't what she was going for, but it seemed to do the trick.

"Mon… Monster…" Someone whispered from the crowds. It was soon joined by many others, each one becoming more and more vicious that the last. Some of them began screaming and yelling, trampling towards the doors in a desperate attempt to get out before the ice witch got them too.

"You fools! We can't let her get away!"

"Someone get a torch! _Burn the witch!_"

"_Burn her!"_

More angry yelling, fists being pumped into the air in determination. Elsa still held onto Anna who was now gripping her arms but had stopped crying and was now looking up at her sister with questioning eyes, her mouth agape slightly while she shook her head. Around them there was frantic running to find some form of fire but Elsa was too busy brushing Anna's cheek to notice.

"The royal family have been cursed! Burn them both!"

"_Grab them, for god's sake!"_

Now that caught her attention. Elsa whipped her head around to the where the voice had come from but couldn't tell who it came from. She swivelled her body around and tried to take a step towards the retreating crowd but stopped dead when Anna screamed behind her.

"_No! No, please, get off me! Let go, please! Elsa! Elsa help m-!"_ The hilt of a sword was brought down onto the back Anna's head, violently knocking the pleading girl unconscious as she was grabbed by two men.

Elsa stared on in muted horror, mouth agape while another two men grabbed her limp arms. Blood trickled down Anna's face and dripped onto the floor and the blonde felt her insides seize up in panic. She felt herself being dragged across the room in the other direction but felt all of the adrenalin leave her and left her with nothing but uncooperative limbs. At some point guards had come flooding into the room to escort the terrified dignitaries out and carry lamps in to fuel the fire. The fire they were now setting up to burn her and Anna. Anna.

_Anna_…

Elsa caught sight of her sisters body again, this time surrounded by another man with a coil of rope in his hands and that was when what was happening finally sunk in.

If felt like the whole world was moving in slow motion as Elsa let out an enraged screech, fighting against the men who were now staring at her in fear. She shoulder barged one of them as best she could and moved quickly as he fell to the ground, winded. She rounded on the other who had stumbled backwards but was now charging at her with arms outstretched. Ripping one of her gloves off, Elsa shot her hand forward and sent a spike of ice into the man's face. He screamed in pain and dropped to the floor, hands hovering over his bleeding eyes.

Elsa was running purely on emotion now, taking off into a run towards the group of men who still hadn't tied Anna up fully. They turned towards the queen and hurriedly tried to unsheathe their swords. One of them dropped his and it clattered to the floor while he jumped down to try and get it. Elsa kicked him in the face while he knelt to try and grab his sword, the thing clumsily slipping from his grasp as his hands shook. Picking up the sword, the blonde brandished it towards the other two men who had dropped Anna's unconscious body on the floor ungracefully. That alone spurred Elsa on. She didn't even need to sword but it seemed to give her a bit of a confidence boost as she drove it forward. The lord on the right didn't have time to react, not expecting such a puny woman to be able to carry a sword and use it so well. His arm got pinned to the pillar behind him by the blade, dropping his own and desperately trying to dislodge his arm from it but only succeeded in making his wound worse as blood gushed onto the floor, tears streaming down his face with anguished cries.

The last man stood his ground and held his sword with confidence, trying not to let his nerves show. Elsa narrowed her eyes at him and him at her. They both stood there and glared at each other in silence, the only sound being the woman's laboured breathing from such exertion after being cooped up doing nothing in her room all these years.

They stood like that for what felt like an eternity, daring the other to make the first move.

With a battle cry, the man raised his sword and lunged towards her. Elsa simply took a step back from the attack and quickly raised her hand in front of her to cause a rather large spike of ice protrude from the ground and skewer the raging man through his heart.

His blade was held inches from Elsa's face and she stared him with seemingly disinterested eyes as his mouth flapped in an attempt to speak but only emitted gurgling noises. As if to make it worse, he slowly began to slip down the spike until Elsa grabbed his shoulder and shoved him back off the end of it, relishing in the sound of a grown man squealing in pain. Some part of her found it highly amusing to watch him try and push himself backwards and away from the queen even though he was going to die anyway if the gaping wound in his chest had anything to do about it.

From the lack of sound behind her Elsa had to assume that everyone else in the room was either unconscious, dead, or had run away in fear of the ice queen.

She gazed down into the dying man's eyes and cocked her head to the side. With morbid fascination she watched him die, pupils dilating and lines of blood trickling down the corners of his mouth, staining his beard red. She waited for a moment, unsure of what to do next before standing up abruptly and turning on her heel to walk to Anna's body.

The wound on the back of her head looked serious, blood now covering most of her face and the floor. Elsa's hands shook and she felt her stomach drop.

_Please don't be dead. Please, please, please…_

She leaned down and rested her head on the princess's chest, closing her eyes in silent prayer. Never had the sound of a beating heart brought her so much joy and Elsa let out a noise of happiness before leaning up again and gazing hopefully at her sister's face.

_You can't stay here. They'll find you soon if you don't hurry. You've got to get out and bring her with you. You can't leave her again. Not now._

The platinum haired woman nodded to herself and mumbled in agreement at the thought, delicately picking up Anna's form in her arms and cradling it close to her body. The castle was ominously quiet and Elsa wondered for a moment where everyone had gone. Obviously they had evacuated but there weren't even any guards left to subdue her. Not that she was complaining.

There was no way she could get out through the front of the castle and so started briskly walking towards a door behind the throne that led to the stables, her cape billowing behind her and heels clicking on the ballroom floor.

* * *

**... shit's gettin' serious yo**

**Do you think I should change the rating to M now? I mean, things are only gonna get more bloody and stuff, trust me.  
I've got plans.**

**Also, this chapter was longer than I anticipated but whatever.  
My mock exam week is coming up soon as well so I don't know when I'll be able to update again between revising and crying_ because_ of revising.**

**Mage**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

* * *

Elsa didn't know how long she's been trekking through the forest with a still unconscious Anna in her arms. Her horse had bucked her off and ran a few miles back after being startled by the sound of howling wolves in the not-too-far distance, leaving Elsa to fend for herself, Anna, and the rather heavy bag of clothes and supplies she'd managed to scavenge before making her daring escape.

The castle had remained eerily quiet all the while she was ravaging her room for suitable clothes and valuables that would be considered worthwhile. At first she had simply packed dresses and the like but one look outside into the heavily snowing abyss quickly changed those to breeches and thick woollen blankets for her sister. Her sister who she had lay on her bed while she searched. The queen had managed to clean up the blood with shaking hands, dressing the wound on the back of her head with bandages clumsily.

But she didn't have time. God knows what was taking the guards so long in finding her, if anyone was looking for her in the first place. Quickly grabbing her notebook from the bedside- the only valuable item she could manage to carry- Elsa made haste to the kitchen and grabbed a loaf of bread. She didn't know how long it would take to find shelter but some naïve part of her thought it shouldn't take that long. People lived in the mountains, she was sure, there had to be some abandoned cottage up there, right?

It had taken considerably longer for her to find a way out. Apparently, the reason the castle had been so quiet was because everyone who had once been in it was now outside, barricading the double doors into the castle while the guards kept watch on them.

She instead had to manoeuvre her horse out the back gates of the castle, even more rarely used than the ones at the front. After that though, the blonde had to ride like a bat out of hell around the side of the castle and through the village, trying to avoid the angry mob of peasants with torches and pitchforks. She would have laughed at the cliché if she wasn't so terrified. One of them nearly got her; grazing the hem of her dress with the blazing flame causing her to hiss in pain and nearly steer the panicking horse into a building.

The form in Elsa's arms shivered violently and the woman tried to readjust her grip on her. The blankets had to be taken out of her bag a while back, wrapping Anna in them but now it seemed pretty much pointless. The storm Elsa had unwittingly created raged on, thick snowflakes pelting her in the face as she squinted against the white haze to try and see ahead of herself. The cold didn't bother her but it was damn annoying at times like this.

_This is great. Absolutely peachy._

As the sleet battered Elsa's partially hooded face, she looked down at Anna's. It was ghostly pale, paler than Elsa herself, and frost had begun to form on her furrowed eyebrows.

_Oh god. Oh god, no. She's not going to make it if you don't find shelter soon._

Elsa bit her lip and shuddered to a stop, dropping to her knees in the thick pile of snow beneath her. It was at least a foot deep by now. Her mind protested and tried to will her to get up, forcing images of their frozen corpses being found months later when anyone stupid enough to be this far in the woods stumbled upon them. But her body was finished. Despite the constant onslaught of snow on her it wasn't the cold that was her downfall but the fact that she had been walking for miles against gale force winds carrying more weight than she had ever even lifted in her lifetime. Her muscles were spent and the adrenalin of trying to escape Arendelle had gone.

_I'm sorry, Anna…_ was her pathetic attempt at redeeming herself to the unconscious girl, _I saved you from one death only to lead you to another_.

It was ironic that Elsa had locked herself away for all those years to save her sister and now with one final fuck up all of it would go to waste. The only thing that kept Elsa from breaking out into sobs was the fact that Anna had called out to Elsa when she was in danger. It was Elsa she wanted to save her. Not Hans, her. It was pretty sick of the queen to find happiness in that.

_I guess I can't even call myself that now._ She had lost her kingdom and all hope of ever returning after that little stunt.

"Heh…"A hollow grin etched onto her face. It was worth it though, she argued to herself. It was worth it to have that feeling again; that feeling of power over something other than her own dismal life. It made her feel… alive. More alive than she'd felt in 13 years.

_Not that it matters now._

Elsa sighed and buried herself closer to Anna, nuzzling her head against her sister's own. She had barely even noticed how the snow had stopped falling at such a velocity and was now calmly fluttering in the night air. In one final attempt of finding her way, Elsa looked up and felt her heart stutter at the sight before her.

The outline of a structure in the milky fog ahead glared back at her, the snow from before blocking her view of it. The blonde let out a sound akin to a sob and hysterical laughter, forcing her protesting bones to lift her up on shaking legs and ploughed towards the lodge and hoped to the gods that it wasn't some kind of trick of her mind to give her false hope.

When her snow clotted shoes hit a wooden set of stairs she almost tripped in exhaustion and laughed again, a wide grin splitting her red raw face. The lodge was of a decent size and made entirely of wood, the door covered in intricate patterns that were by now peeling off from time and wear.

After a few tired but heavy kicks to it, the door swung open with a thud and Elsa practically dragged herself into the dark room before dropping to her knees and placing Anna on the floor, kicking the door shut behind her and rolling to the side. The wind howled outside and whistled though the slight crack beneath the door but she didn't care. She had saved her little sister. She had done something right. With a whoop of victory, the woman threw her fists in the air before dropping them onto her face and laughing into her hands. She rolled back on forth on the floor and laughed and laughed until she bumped into a table that lay by the door, prompt cutting her hysterics short.

By all logical accounts she should have passed out by now; by how her muscles felt like they were trying to melt off her and her limbs weighed a million tonnes and this floor felt awfully comfortable despite the dust and lack of rug. But she wasn't.

She wasn't because she knew that now she had to take care of Anna until she woke up.

With a newfound goal, Elsa managed to hoist herself up off the floor and held onto the table she had bumped into for support. Anna's still form beneath multiple layers of blankets; a black blob in the otherwise normal looking room now that the blonde's eyes had adjusted to the darkness. A weak light from the moon flooded through the small window on the left wall. There was a thick rug on the floor that covered most of the room which had a lumpy, patched up couch facing away from the door in front of a fireplace while wooden furniture was scattered about the room. There were two other doorways that led to other parts of the house on the right wall.

Elsa trudged over to Anna and grunted as she picked the girl up, her body not being as cooperative as it was before. She placed her sister on the couch and set to work on the fire. Chucking logs onto the metal rack, Elsa tried several times to light match that would last long enough to light the damn thing before sighing in relief as a small, flickering light appeared and began to glow. She had seen maids do this to her own fireplace despite her lack of need for it, but Elsa cupped her hands around her mouth and blew softy against it until the flame glowed brighter and brighter until a growing flame blossomed and licked its way around the rest of the logs. Elsa stared at it for a while, smiling at her accomplishment before picking up one of the kindling twigs and using it to light the lanterns that were dotted around the room.

The inside of the cabin looked like it hadn't been touched in a while; probably for the ice harvesters when they did their jobs in the mountains. She ran a finger along a dresser and grimaced when it pulled away almost black from the dust.

A log on the fire cracked and Elsa pivoted herself around to go back to the couch where her sister lay, still bundled up, still snow covered. She knew she'd have to change Anna's clothes so the poor girl wouldn't get even sicker from the cold. Obviously the thought made her blush. She hadn't seen her sister in such a long time and now one of the first things she had to do with her was strip the unconscious girl and try and put some more clothes on her.

Elsa swallowed thickly and with shaking hands, started to unwrap the million layers of blankets around the slumbering girl. When she finally got through said million blankets that were now in a messy pile next to her, Elsa stared with tightly drawn brows and pressed lips, hands hovering over the bottom of Anna have crumpled ball gown. As she moved forward, the woman paused and darted her eyes back and forth between the redhead's closed ones and the dress, fearing as soon as she touched it the girl would wake up and slap her for being so vulgar. And with her own sister. For shame.

But she needed to do this.

_Come on, Elsa. It's not like you haven't seen her naked before. Like… when you were younger and stuff._

_I'm pretty sure she's _developed _since then_.

…_fair point._

The voices in her head battled their arguments while Elsa herself was still hovering over the dress like it was going to bite her. She knew she'd have to face the music sooner or later and so silenced the annoying bickering in her head and quickly hiked Anna's skirt up her legs before realised all to late that this probably wasn't the best way to go.

Not before getting an eyeful of creamy skin, of course.

Elsa let out a breath and rethought her tactics while trying to get the image out of her head. Maybe if she just…

She moved her twitching hands towards Anna's middle, flipping the girl over so she could have a go at undoing the back of the dress. With fumbling hands and still blushing face, Elsa managed to unlace the bodice and began to push it off the girl's back, breath hitching in her throat at the sight of the heavy dusting of freckles that decorated Anna's back and shoulders. Elsa knew how much her younger sibling hated them but she couldn't help but find them beautiful and without even realising it had begun to trace patterns in the constellations.

It was only when Anna shivered and arched herself away from the blonde did she realise and yank her hand away like it had been burned on the lightly tanned skin. She cradled the offending appendage to her chest and looked at Anna's sleeping face.

The fire seemed to have melted the vicious frost in the girl's hair and had returned the constant rosy glow to her cheeks.

_She looks so peaceful_, she thought, _It's almost as if nothing happened… like I didn't… _the thought trailed off and Elsa sighed, lowering her gaze to look at her hand before gripping it into a fist and continuing with the task of removing Anna's dress.

The whole process took a whopping 30 minutes, most of said time being taken up by Elsa averting her gaze elsewhere while trying to remove some of the more _intimate _articles of clothing and quickly replacing them with dry ones. But no matter how hard she tried to look away or not stare for too long she couldn't help her eyes wandering over the expanse of skin now on show for her viewing pleasure, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth all the while.

Elsa stared for a moment longer before quickly grabbing her bag of clothes from the door and pulling out one of the winter dresses she had packed to dress her sister in. She kept her eyes low this time, not sparring any glances as she covered Anna.

Her cape had dried by now from having her back to the fire for so long and so unclipped it, shook it out, and lightly placed it on top of the princess. She kissed her lightly on the forehead and picked up the waterlogged clothes and blankets to dry somewhere as well as a set of clothes for herself to change into.

As she left, she failed to notice Anna grip her sister's cape tighter around herself and smile in her sleep, content with the feeling of being surrounded by the woman's scent.

* * *

**Ehh, kind of a calm chapter considering what the heck just happened. I guess this is more of a filler if anything.**

**Still pretty important though, gotta make sure our girls are safe for now, eh?**

**Got some exams next week so yeah, just wanted to post this now so I don't like, forget in a panic or something :P**

**Mage**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

* * *

Anna scrunched her brow and tried to bury herself into the warmth of the blanket atop her. The logs on the fire crackled and the young woman smiled sleepily into the fabric that encased her, revelling in the comfort it brought. The combined smell of the slightly perfumed sheet and burning wood made it hard for the redhead to convince herself to move, or even open her eyes. The throbbing pain at the back of her head didn't help much either.

How did that even happen?

A brief memory of what had happened at the coronation party flashed through her mind but it was enough to made Anna's heart stop beating for a split second and her eyes to snap open. A torrent of memories soon followed the single one; introducing Hans to Elsa, Elsa freaking out, Elsa… freezing Hans' hand off…

A white hot pain shot through her head as she bolted upright from the couch, nearly knocking herself out again from the extreme head rush.

"Aww… _damn it_…" Anna hissed and flopped back onto the seat, squeezing her eyes shut again and pressing her palms to them. It took a few more seconds before she realised that she had no idea where she was or what had happened after those men grabbed her.

Anna shuddered, remembering the angered yelling at her and large, gloved hands grabbing her at all sides, Elsa's fear stricken eyes boring into her own and then… nothing.

"Elsa…" Her voice cracked and the princess tried once again to get up, steadying herself on the lumpy settee. Her legs felt like they were going to snap under her weight and her head spun so violently she felt like she was going to empty whatever was in her stomach.

With one hand still clutching at her head, Anna's half open eye swept the room and noticed the lack Elsa in it.

Despite seeing what her sister was capable of after maiming her fiancé, Anna knew that she had to find the woman and demand an explanation. She felt her stomach churn again at the thought of Hans' black stump of a wrist and swallowed hard.

"E-Elsa!" The redhead called towards the doorways, still too wobbly to make any move towards them, "Elsa! Are you here? I, uh, I-I just wanted to talk to you about the whole… _ice powers _thing… hello?" Anna took a shaky breath and grabbed at the blanket she had been wrapped in for comfort. Her fingers brushed on the velvety fabric and realised almost immediately that it was her sister's cape. She stared at it a moment longer, fingers rubbing slowly over the soft, purple fabric before wrapping it around herself and taking a cautionary step towards one of the doors.

From the lack of response, Anna had assumed that she was alone in the cabin and poked her head around the closest doorway to confirm her suspicions. The room turned out to be a small kitchen, a single lamp left precariously on the wooden counter. There was another door on the farthest wall in the corner with a small window on it, revealing the snow covered forest outside. Anna noted that it was no longer night time but the observation merely made the girl more nervous.

_How long have I been asleep exactly?_

A loud gurgle from her stomach made Anna realise how hungry she actually was but a quick inspection of the cupboards found nothing but dust, crumbs, and a few insect carcases. Grimacing, she decided to check out the other room.

Not surprisingly, the other room turned out to be a bedroom. Another lamp rested on a table next to the wide bed, a knitted blanket draped over it. Next to the lamp was a leather bound notebook which looked rather worse for wear, a thin knot of fabric tying it together. Anna raised an eyebrow and sucked in her bottom lip, glancing around the room and behind her in case Elsa were to pop out of nowhere. Curiosity had gotten the better of her once again and she sat herself down on the bed, picking up the book and resting it on her lap. There was no doubt in her mind that it was Elsa's. Who else's could it have been? The owner of the lodge?

Anna paused and furrowed her brows again. Where _were _the owners of the lodge? Had Elsa…

_No. No, Elsa wouldn't do that to someone. She wouldn't… She wouldn't _kill _someone. Of course not, don't be stupid, Anna._

But what about Hans? Anna had seen the look in her sister's eyes when she froze his arm, that terrifying spark of satisfaction at his screams for mercy. Of course, that had all changed when the redhead herself had managed to pry the queen away from the begging prince. Her expression softened and her eyes suddenly became adoring; she began doting on Anna like she had wanted to do it for years. In retrospect she probably had. She could remember how soft her touch on her face was, how calming her voice was, how hypnotic. She could remember staring back into Elsa's eyes and seeing the sister she had known when she was a child and in that moment had forgotten everything that had just happened.

Until the screaming started.

Anna sighed heavily again and shook her head, blinking rapidly as if to banish the memory from her thoughts. A part of her didn't want to become enticed by the thought of having her older sister back, not after what she had done. She didn't w_ant _to have to go through that turmoil again.

The princess gripped the book harder and let out a breath and began staring it down, like the book itself was to blame for all of this.

With shaking hands, Anna untied the strap around the tome and tossed it beside her on the bed and cautiously opened the delicate binding.

The first page was just writing, written in the hasty scrawl of a child and dotted with smudge marks every now and again. Anna traced them with her fingers and bit her lip.

"_It's been a whole day since Mama and Papa told me to keep away from Anna. Papa keeps telling me to control it but I can't and he keeps getting mad at me. Mama tried to calm him down but they both end up crying. I don't like it when they cry. Papa told me he wasn't angry at me but I know he is. It's my fault."_

Many of the words had been scribbled out and those that remained were smudged with tears. Anna swallowed hard and covered her mouth with her free hand. She flipped the page.

"_Anna came to my door again today. She always asks if I want to play and I want to say yes but I'm not allowed to yet. Papa says I have to learn to control it. I'm trying really hard to but it keeps happening and I don't want to hurt Anna again so I stay inside. Inside is boring. Anna never stays inside for long. I can see her outside sometimes and it makes me happy to know that she's okay now. I can't hurt her inside."_

At the bottom of the page was a scruffy looking doodle of two figures. One had twin braids and the other a single one, both of them were smiling and holding hands with a small heart drawn above them. Despite herself, Anna's lips twitched into a smile.

Flipping a few pages ahead, the princess noticed how the childish scrawl became neater and more familiar with each passage. She also noticed how at the end of each entry there was a small doodle of herself and Elsa doing something together. Sometimes another figure joined theirs with a little arrow pointing towards it and naming it _'Olaf'_.

Anna stopped on a random page again.

"_I asked Mama what the true meaning of love was today. She took a while in answering but she ended up saying that love was putting someone's needs before your own. I told her that I loved Anna if that was its true meaning and she started crying again. She's been doing that a lot recently. The strange thing is though, is that I've been reading some more books recently that I found at the back of library and they too express the themes of love. Apparently love can be shown through different ways of which I have never heard. The book was about a man and a woman who loved each other too and they did many things to show their love for one another. They hugged and held hands like me and Anna used to do, but they did some other things as well. They kissed and touched each other in places. I've seen Mama and Papa kiss sometimes and they love each other very much. I think I love Anna that much too. I wish I could show her. I love her certainly more than that man and woman love each other since they had only just met each other, but I've known Anna my whole life so I must love her more."_

At the bottom of this page was a more detailed drawing of her and Elsa holding both the others hands and facing each other, eyes closed as their doodle counterparts kissed.

Anna stared at the page for a few moments and felt her heart stutter to a near stop at the sight of the drawing. Her eyes scanned over the writing of her sister again and again like the words would change if she thought about it hard enough. The fact of the matter remained; Elsa loved her and to an extent that may not have been considered sisterly. How old must she have been when she wrote this? Barely on the cusp of womanhood surely, 13 or 14 maybe?

_Where the hell is she?_

Anna shook her head slowly and dutifully flicked through more of the pages, her eyes stopping on one page in particular. It was covered in writing but was the same phrase repeated.

"_My fault."_

The words lapsed over each other and varied in size, each letter seeming more distraught than the last. It looked as though Elsa had forgotten she wrote the words each time her pen finished writing it, some of the letters smudging in a specific direction where her sister's hand had wiped against the wet ink. Anna traced the words with her fingers again, feeling tears well up in her fogged over eyes.

_This must have been the day… Mama and Papa…_ She couldn't even finish the thought. Anna closed the books and rested her head atop it, sighing out through her nose and trying to suppress the waterfall of tears threatening to fall. Although she hadn't read a lot of the diary - she didn't think she could handle it – the young redhead felt like she'd just unwittingly caught a glimpse of Elsa's own version of the past 13 years no matter how obscene and sinful it was.

There was a small, lingering part of Anna that wanted to quickly browse the rest of the book and who was she to deny it? With teeth clenched and stomach in knots, she opened the diary to one of the last pages and felt all her previous thoughts melt away into… something. She couldn't quite pinpoint the emotion.

On the double page spread that seemed to carry on from earlier pages and continue on to the remaining ones were drawings of Anna herself. Each one flooded with detail from the curve of her cheeks to the freckles that dusted them, from the way her eyes crinkled at the edges when she smiled to the slope of her nose. Each one a perfect portrait of the princess going through different emotions and angles and states of undress.

Anna blushed hard at a rather intricate sketch of herself with a look of what only can be described as lust on her face and revealing a little too much skin that was deemed fit for a young woman.

The book was slammed shut once again and Anna caught her breath, feeling like the drawings had sucked her into whatever deranged world its pages captured. The unnamed emotion she had felt before seemed to have been amplified tenfold by the discovery and Anna was trying desperately to figure out what it was.

The pit of her stomach felt hot and she squirmed where she sat, eyes darting to and fro on the floor. She had never felt a sensation quite like this but something about it felt wrong. She should be angry, disgusted, appalled that her own sister had these ungodly feelings towards her but the girl simply couldn't bring herself to do it. This feeling she had was wrong, but it felt amazing and right and she didn't want to stop it.

Along with it came a sense of paranoia. Anna daren't wonder of how many times she had been spied upon unknowingly by her sibling.

When she thought that it had finally dawned on her what she was experiencing, the sound of the front door slamming open and shut startled the poor girl so much she barely managed to suppress a squeal of terror and fumbled manically with the string to tie the notebook up again.

The sound of shuffling feet halted and there was a brief silence in which Anna finally managed to tie a damn knot on the book and shove it onto the bedside again.

"Anna?" Her sister's voice drifted into her ears and Anna felt her eyelids flutter. It had felt like a lifetime that she had last heard it.

"Anna? Anna, where are you?" Elsa sounded panicked suddenly and the sound of footsteps resumed, sounding like the woman was now sprinting across the floor to the kitchen first, and then nearly catapulting herself into the bedroom but managing to stop herself upon sighting her younger sister perched upon the bed like nothing was amiss.

Despite not moving, Anna felt herself breathing at the same ragged tempo of her sister.

The siblings stared at each other for what felt like hours, drinking in the others disheveled appearance. It was only then that Anna became self-conscious of herself, noting how her hair had been taken out of its styled do to rest loosely around her shoulders. Apparently, only Elsa could successfully pull off having her hair slicked back with wind and snow.

The redhead became uneasy with the silence and cleared her throat.

"Hey." She muttered, raising her hand in a pathetic half wave. The noise seemed to break Elsa from her trance and the blonde immediately rushed to Anna's side and began searching her for any further injury.

"Oh my god, Anna. Anna, Anna, Anna, are you okay? Does your head still hurt? What are you doing up? You're in no fit state to be up. How long have you been awake?" Elsa fretted, delicately raking her hands through Anna's auburn hair to search for the lump at the back of her sister's head. Anna herself simply blinked up at the queen and tried to avoid direct eye contact.

Anna giggled nervously and tried to bat away Elsa's wandering hands to no avail, "Aha, I'm fine, Elsa, really I am. I just, you know, got up for a bit of a stretch and then you came in and here we are and… and you're not wearing your gloves." She squeaked, staring wide eyed when Elsa finally removed her hands from the princesses mess of hair. The woman herself looked down at them and then back up at her younger sibling and cocked her head to the side.

"Yes?"

"… I thought you never took your gloves off."

"I don't."

"… oh-kaaay."

Anna raised an eyebrow at the cryptic responses and tried to edge herself away from Elsa as discretely as possible. Apparently she wasn't discrete enough and the blonde promptly followed her. Her icy blue eyes were laced with worry and the rest of her face looked as though she was mimicking a child being denied cookies before dinner.

_Cookies… they sound pretty good right now…_

As if to taunt her with her hunger, Anna's stomach gurgled loudly causing the two woman to look down at her tummy. Elsa raised her eyebrows while Anna blushed and looked to the other side of the room.

"Oh, yes, that reminds me…" Elsa trailed off, getting up and wandering back into the front room. Anna followed her on jelly legs, leant against the door frame, and watched in fascination as her sister dropped to her knees in front of a sack in the center of the room and began rummaging through it. She noticed how there was a trail of snowy footprints that led from the door to the fireplace and then the kitchen; probably Elsa's from before.

"Here." The voice startled Anna and she jumped to stare up at Elsa who was holding a half of bread towards her. The queen nibbled on her own, smaller piece while Anna greedily chomped through it in a matter of seconds, surprised at how hungry she actually was. She grunted out a thanks between bites and Elsa only smiled fondly before turning back towards the bag on the floor and picking it up.

"How long have I been out exactly?" Anna questioned, dusting her hands of crumbs on her dress.

"Two days." Elsa said offhandedly, like it was no big deal.

Anna sputtered and felt her eyes bug out, "T-Two whole _days_!?" She whimpered, waddling over to the couch to sit next to her sister and stare up at her expectantly.

"Yes. It was quite the nasty blow you took there," Elsa's eyes became sad and she lifted her hand up to try and pet the back of Anna's head but paused at the look of confusion that now graced the girl's expression, "You… You don't remember?"

Shaking her head slowly with her mouth still open in shock, Anna waited for Elsa to explain herself. The latter sighed and stared into the crackling fire before continuing.

"After those men grabbed you," Elsa's eyes flashed viciously for a moment before she turned her gaze on Anna, "They accused the both of us of being witches and threatened to burn us at the stake." At that, she scoffed and rolled her eyes, "A rather medieval practice, if you ask me. But then you… well, you tried to stop them of course, started yelling for me to help and then they…" She trailed off and grabbed one of Anna's free hands causing the younger girl to gasp at the contrast in temperature, "They hit you on the back of the head with a sword, and you got knocked out."

The redhead looked up from their entwined hands at Elsa's face, suddenly not having the heart to move her shaking hands from her sisters at the pitiful expression she held. She tried to say something in response, ask what happened and how on earth they got to a deserted cabin in the middle of the forest but could only manage to flap her jaw in shock.

Elsa took the silence as a cue to continue the story.

"I took care of them, don't worry, they won't hurt you again," There was something in her smile that failed to comfort the redhead and she tensed up when Elsa's other hand cupped her cheek, "After that though… I-I managed to get out of the castle on a horse and into the woods. They tried to stop me of course but, but I guess I was too fast for them. The horse bucked us off after a while though; heard some wolves and panicked. Then I carried you here and we've been here ever since." The woman grinned at her sister and waited for some kind of response.

"And we've been up here for two days?"

"Yeah."

"Two days and no one's come looking for us?" Anna sounded as though she was talking to an infant and Elsa furrowed her brow.

"I should hope not, Odin knows what they'd do to me if they did."

"_Elsa!_" The blonde in question jumped at the suddenly angry tone of her sister and cocked her head in worried confusion.

"You can't just run away from your problems like that! Not again. Our people deserve answers! _I_ deserve answers! Hell, let's start right now. How long were you planning on hiding this winter power-y stuff from me, huh? What, were you just gonna wait until we're on our death beds together and be like 'oh hey, Anna, by the way, I can control part of the elements thought you should know?" Anna had gotten up mid-rant and was now pacing in front of the fireplace with Elsa's cape billowing behind her, taking on a higher pitched voice when mimicking her sister. She suddenly paused in front of Elsa with hands on her hips and stared down at the woman expectantly, chest heaving and eyes narrowed.

Upon seeing that Elsa was now sheepishly looking at the floor and fiddling with her trembling fingers, Anna sighed and sat down next to the woman again.

"I… I only did it to protect you…" She whispered, turning her head away from the princess beside her.

"What…?"

Elsa sniffed and straightened her back, trying to regain some of the regal dignitary she seemed to have lost upon finding her sister awake.

"We were playing. You had asked if I wanted to build a snowman…" Her lips twitched into a hollow smile, "I was building snow mounds for you to jump on but you were going too fast… and…" She looked down at her hands and flinched them into tight fists, "I hit you in the head with a blast and I just… didn't know what to do… you just fell and then Papa came in and took you to see these Trolls in the woods and they helped you but they had to take your memories… don't look at me like that, it's true!" Anna had raised an eyebrow in skepticism but the ferocity behind her sibling's voice about this tall tale being true she couldn't help but feel that it kind of was.

Out of habit she brushed an invisible strand of hair behind her ear and looked down in shame. Elsa's hand came up to brush along the lock of white hair that nestled itself in Anna's fiery mane.

"It's how you got this." Elsa muttered sadly, tracing her slim fingers down the strand.

Anna swallowed thickly and sighed, raising a tentative hand to hold Elsa's own against her hair. The older woman seized up and her eyes widened, shocked that Anna had willingly touched her this time.

"Okay then… I believe you…" She whispered, rubbing her thumb over the back of her sister's hand. They stayed like that for a moment before Anna flushed red and cleared her throat, pulling away from the contact causing Elsa to frown slightly.

"R-Right. We're not done talking about this, okay?" Elsa quickly shook her head and Anna nodded once, "Okay… how have you been living up here for two days anyway? There's not food in the kitchen and stuff…"

"Oh, well, there's a trading post a little bit down the mountain. He has food stocked up. And for water I just kind of… melt the snow by the fire and then drink it…" Elsa blushed and Anna snickered, "It's not very dignified, I know, but there's nothing else to do."

"Fair enough, but what about that store? Won't the owner recognise you as, you know, _the queen_?"

"Oh, I just do this." Elsa tugged up the black shawl over her mouth and pulled the hood of a different cape over her head. The disguise made it so that anyone looking would only see Elsa's eyes, "It's fairly effective. Oh, and there's a toilet outside just in case you need to use it... which no doubt you will. That was a stupid thing to say." Her words were muffled but Anna could see a blush work its way across the bridge of the woman's nose through the sliver of an opening.

Anna rolled her eyes with a smirk and pulled the hood down over the rest of Elsa's face, giggling and the muffled squeak of surprise, "Alright, you big dope, I get it."

Fumbling the layers of cover off herself, a flustered Elsa appeared from under the clothes and worried her bottom lip with her teeth while smiling nervously.

"I-I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier…" She muttered, stroking her braid with both hands nervously.

"It's okay… I'm just glad I have you back." Elsa looked up to her younger sister and couldn't help but smile back at the warm grin the redhead was giving her. Although Anna felt content in that moment a small nagging part of her brain still had questions whizzing through it.

One of them being what was now happening down in Arendelle.

* * *

After their queen had fled the town, the citizens of Arendelle quickly began to panic now that their blood lust towards the sorceress had stopped occupying their minds. Many were already packing as many supplied as they could to travel to another town, one not covered in eternal winter. Riots over food and other supplies started shortly after and with the power vacuum now in place there were no people in positions of power to stop them.

The guards of the castle had taken to the streets in an attempt to subdue the townsfolk while the visiting dignitaries took refuge in the castle.

The bodies of the men from the ballroom had been moved reluctantly, most of them now already dead from blood loss.

Prince Hans sat on a bed in the castle's medical wing. He stared hollowly at the wall across from him and continuously clenched his remaining hand. In his mind, millions of thoughts kept him awake and one in particular caught his attention more than once.

He had been debating with himself for the past few days on whether or not he should execute the plan he had managed to form.

His eyes flickered to his sword that rested against the wall in the corner of the room; still sheathed, still unused.

Eyes closing slowly, Hans let out a long breath through his nose before getting up and sauntering over to his weapon, testing its weight in his palm before clumsily attaching it to himself. Now that he had lost his dominate hand things would bt much more difficult.

With that, he turned on his heel and quickly made his was out of the room, the only thing revealing his presence being the unmade bed sheets.

* * *

**Ahh, I'm so glad that you guys are liking my story ^^**

**I'm very grateful for all of the follows and favorites that I've been getting and reviews make me very, very happy.  
Also, I hope you guys can tell what kind of "dark" I'm going for with this whole story because I don't know if I'm doing it very well.**

**Again, ideas for future chapters are always appreciated since most of them are up in the air right now :V**

**Thank you for reading**

**Mage**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

* * *

There were apparently several things that Elsa had failed to think about upon fleeing her own kingdom and essentially kidnapping her sister in the process.

After she was done riding the emotional high seeing her sister awake had brought, Elsa realised that she now had to protect both Anna and herself and keep them alive long enough to form a plan other that 'hang out in the mountains until someone finds us'. With food being pretty much scarce and the only source of heat for Anna being a small wood fire there was a small part of Elsa which abused herself every time she saw Anna so much as shiver out of the corner of her eye.

_How could you be so selfish?_

Elsa frowned.

_To think that she'd even want to live under the same roof with you after all this time. After all you've done._

She gripped the thing in her hands tighter and hoisted it over her shoulder.

_You're disgusting._

The blade of the axe came down onto the log harder than was probably necessary, the wood falling in two halves into the powdery snow with a muffled thump. The woman had been outside for some time now, trying to relieve herself from the heavy tension that lay thick throughout the small cabin. She had found that chopping wood for the ever burning fireplace helped calm her nerves a disturbing amount. By now there was a sizable pile of logs off to the side which Elsa gazed at and sighed, dropping the dulled axe by the stump and grabbing an armful of wood to return with.

After Anna had woken up Elsa had taken it upon herself to care for her sister and while she wasn't regretting the decision, per se, it was very much draining her.

The queen hadn't slept all the while she had been up in the mountains, determined to stay awake and protect her sister in case someone managed to find them in the dead of night. She knew she couldn't do it forever; god knows how many times she experimented with herself when she was younger, testing how long she could stay awake before she started hallucinating being one of her personal tests of endurance.

She also knew that Anna could probably fend for herself if the need arose but it was nice to have that peace of mind.

Grunting with effort, Elsa tried to get a better hold of the firewood and stomped her booted feet on the planks of wood that lead to the back door to kick off the excess snow. She managed to open the door and bump it close with her hip, wincing at the loud banging sound it made.

She shuffled to the main room and dropped the wood into their holder, grimacing again as they completely missed and clattered against the floor.

_You're an absolute idiot._

Elsa's legs wobbled and she collapsed backwards onto the couch, covering her face with her hands. The fire crackled.

There was a familiar tranquillity that the sound of the fire brought her. Despite her lack of need for heat, its warmth always seemed to bring her comfort, the smell of burning wood calming her significantly. Despite her affinity for the cold, heat would always hold a place in her heart.

The sound of shuffling footsteps broke the blonde from her thoughts and she snapped her head up only to be met with the sight of a bleary-eyed Anna waddling towards her, dragging the bed quilt behind her like a cape. Elsa's mouth immediately morphed into a dopy grin and she silently moved herself further up the couch to allow her weary sister a seat.

Even though she was healed for the most part, Elsa still insisted that Anna rest as much as she could. The redhead plopped down next to the woman and stared at her through half lidded eyes.

_Adorable._

"…'woke me up." She slurred, the words sounding more like a statement than an accusation. Elsa's smile flickered off and she looked down sheepishly.

"Sorry."

"S'okay. I wanted to talk anyway." Anna pulled the blanket from underneath her and bunched it up in her arms, resting her chin on the bundle and blinking a few times to try and beat back the sleepiness. Elsa raised her eyes from the floor and quirked a brow at her sister.

"What about?"

"I think you should take a break… you know, from helping me all the time."

"What? Why?" Elsa's tone suddenly became frantic and she shot up straight in her seat. Anna rolled her eyes and sighed in frustration.

"Elsa, look at you, you're practically dead on your feet!" The younger girl leaned forward and gestured to the dark bags under her sibling's eyes and then to her dishevelled clothing; a white shirt and breeches. Not a very distinguished choice, she knew, but they were much more practical than a dress for all the physical labour she now had to do, "If you don't rest soon, your body's going to shut down."

"Since when were you the responsible one?" Elsa shot back, folding her arms like the argument held any weight. Her skull suddenly felt like someone had put a lead weight inside it, her head lolling slightly as she tried to focus her waning attention on Anna. The girl in question sighed again and changed her features into ones of concern. Elsa stared at her hand as it seemingly morphed through her lap, the corners of her vision becoming blurry.

It was like Anna's words had reminded Elsa's body just how exhausted she was. She felt someone lightly push her shoulder down so she was lying awkwardly on the couch with her legs still on the floor. Anna got up and dropped the balled up quilt on the floor for a moment, moving to grab Elsa's legs and hoist them onto the now free space.

"You're going to sleep. Now. Right now." Anna stood and nodded once, pointing at the floor as if it enforced her point. Elsa furrowed her brows and tried to sit up but felt hands on her shoulders push her down again, "No. Nope. You're going to bed right now even if I have to force you." The younger girl put her hands on her hips and stared the other woman down, narrowing her eyes in an attempt to look threatening but only managing to make herself look more comical.

Elsa sighed and stared at the celling for a moment. She could tell that she was fighting a losing battle. If Anna was anything, she was stubborn, and by the look of determination on her face it looked as though she was willing to fight her cause for as long as it took. Now that she thought about it though, this settee _did _feel pretty comfortable. And she supposed a little nap wouldn't do any harm. But…

"But what if-"

"No." Anna immediately cut her off, bending down to pick up the quilt.

"Anna, liste-"

"_No_." She unfurled the fabric and shook it out, laying it on top of her protesting sibling.

"_Anna-_"

"Shhh." The redhead held a finger to her lips and used her free hand to smooth back Elsa's hair. Elsa sighed through her nose and found it becoming harder to hold her eyes open every time she blinked. The calming sensation of someone petting her hair didn't help either.

"Are you gonna sleep?" She heard Anna ask, her tone expectant and already anticipating the answer.

"Mmm…" The blonde hummed in confirmation, rolling onto her side and closing her eyes fully. Anna faltered in her combing for a second and moved to stand but felt her wrist get grabbed in an icy grip, "Wait…wait…" Came Elsa's slurred voice. The younger woman slowly knelt back down and cocked her head, staring curiously at her half-conscious sister.

"I… I love you…" Through her sleep deprived voice the words sounded almost childlike and Anna felt her breath hitch, her hand clenching against her shirt. Elsa's eyes remained closed and her face never changed expression, her breathing slowing as Anna resumed running a hand through her creamy locks.

"… love you, too…" Anna muttered, knowing that her sibling was probably asleep already and wouldn't hear it.

Anna stayed kneeling by the couch for a few minutes, continuously running her hand through Elsa's hair until she was certain the latter was asleep this time. She gradually slowed her hand and rested it on her lap, staring at the sleeping face of her sister with a hard expression.

"…I'm sorry." She whispered.

Abruptly standing, the younger woman walked quickly back into the bedroom and rummaged through the wardrobe trying to find her bag. Elsa had never woken her up. In fact, the younger woman had been up for a while preparing herself for the task that lay ahead. She had managed to discretely pack away some of the clothes that Elsa had brought with her and was relieved to find one of her own winter dresses crammed in at the bottom of the sack.

Her trembling hands wrapped around the lumpy fabric and immediately flung it onto the unmade bed, pulling out said winter dress to change into.

After talking to Elsa and pressing her on details about what had happened after she was knocked out, the older woman became silent and refused to say anything beyond '_I handled it_' which gave no purpose for Anna to stop asking given how vague of an answer it was. Nor did it give her an excuse to stop worrying.

Anna loved her sister, truly she did, but she had seen the anger in those normally calm, blue eyes. Seen the utter most rage they held before her world went black. Seen the malice when she was freezing Hans' arm off and the pleasure that quickly replaced it when his screams of mercy met her ears. She'd seen it all and so her brain was working overtime to come up with horrible theories as to what actually happened that night. She wanted to believe that Elsa didn't cause as much of a catastrophe as her brain was making her believe but her logical side knew better.

She barely even realised that she was practically ready until her hand grazed the cold metal of the door knob. Anna paused for a moment, her mind reeling, thoughts bubbling over.

She wondered if Elsa would be okay when she left.

_Probably not._

Her breath hitched and her hand clamped onto the handle, her determination wavering.

The older woman, from what Anna had seen, loved her sister dearly. One might even call it an obsession. After reading the journal and discovering the taboo feelings her sibling held for her, even if the blonde didn't understand how wrong those feelings were, Anna felt as though she should have fled from the house immediately. She should have vomited. She should have cried. She should have _done_ something or _felt _something other than a sickening wave of _happiness_.

But she didn't.

And she was disgusted with herself.

And so she had to leave, for her and Elsa's sake.

_It's wrong and you know it. It's your responsibility to save her from herself… even if this is the only thing you can do right now…_

Anna mused if this is what Elsa told herself when she shut the redhead out all those years ago and sucked in a breath, finally opening the door stiffly. A draft whistled its way through the room and the flames of the fire danced. Anna heard the sleeping woman let out a sigh and the rustling of fabric as she rolled over again.

_She was always a restless sleeper… _Anna thought, her lips twitching into a smile for a second before she steeled herself against the bitter outdoors and quietly closed the door behind her.

* * *

Somewhere a few miles down the mountain, two dark figures trudged through the thick blanket of snow. Both wore scarves wrapped around their mouths and were covered in frost from hat to boot. One of them paused to catch his breath and the other sighed impatiently.

"Would ya quit stoppin' every 5 minutes? We're never gonna find 'er if you keep wastin' me time." The figured snapped at the other. The man's voice was muffled by his scarf but it didn't take the rough edge off it.

"Don't get your bloomers in a bunch, we're makin' great time." The other panted, resting his hands on his knees and looking up at his companion with narrowed eyes.

"We're only this far because Prince Hans made us go 'n' make sure he knew where to go when he decides to move," The man reminded rather irritably. The other figure straightened and tried to futility brush off some of the snow on his arms, "I tell ya, them royals can't do anythin' themselves. Gotta get hard workin' folk like us to do the grunt work for 'em…" The man continued, muttering mostly to himself as his partner rolled his eyes and quickly stalked ahead.

"What'd I tell ya about talkin' to yourself? First sign of insanity, ya know." He called over his shoulder, ploughing through the snow as if to prove a point.

The other man growled a sigh and reluctantly followed, still muttering curses under his visible breath.

* * *

**You guys are so cute with your faves and your follows and your reviews uvu  
Keep being cute**

**Kinda slow on this chapter, I know, I'm sorry, but I kind of have an idea of what I'm gonna do for the next chapter so it hopefully won't take as long to type up.**

**Also, tell me if you guys think I'm going through stuff too fast. I feel like I'm skimming over everything too quickly for anything to be as interesting as I want :/**

**Mage**


	7. Chapter 7

**tw; threat of rape**

* * *

Chapter 7

* * *

_This has been the stupidest idea I've ever had, good god, it's cold._

Anna mentally berated herself and tried for what felt like the millionth time to stop her teeth chattering. There was no wind, no snow, no freezing matter of any sort pelting from the sky, but since Elsa had managed to turn Arendelle's regular summer into the current frozen wasteland it now was, Anna hadn't managed to prepare herself accordingly. Her hands shook violently as she tried to pull the large cloak around her further but could barely get a grip in her slowly numbing fingers.

"S-S-Shit…" She muttered, squeezing her eyes shut and taking another step. The powdery snow beneath her gave and the redhead slid a few feet down the mountain, her shriek echoing around the otherwise silent area. Somehow she managed to keep her footing but the rapid beating of her heart and quick puffs of steam rising from her mouth gave away her mild heart attack.

Eyes now wide in shock, Anna raised her head as best she could and felt her numbed cheeks nearly split open in a smile as she caught sight of smoke billowing from above the treetops.

_Heat! Fire! People! Civilisation!_

Anna giggled excitedly and began powering through the snow as best she could, only stopping when the sight of a cabin came into view. She slowed her footing and leant against the back of the small house to catch her breath. Feeling proud that she'd made it this far, the princess stumbled around the front of the house and noticed the snow covered sign above the porch and leaned up to smack it, large clumps of snow hitting the ground as they revealed carved letters on the swaying piece of wood.

_Wandering Oaken's Trading Post_

Another clump fell off a smaller part.

… _and sauna._

Anna hummed and jutted out her lip.

_Odd combination, but okay… _She dragged her heavy feet onto the wooden floor and paused, _Didn't Elsa say there was a shop a way little down the mountain? 15 minutes away or something…? _Anna groaned and threw her head back in annoyance, _Don't tell me I've only been walking for 15 minutes, by the gods, its not so!_

"For the love of…" Smacking a mitten covered hand to her face, Anna let out a frustrated growl and dragged her hand down her face. She didn't feel so tired anymore.

But, as long as she was here, it couldn't hurt to ask for directions or something. _A sauna visit sounds pretty good right about now…_

A smile twitching at her lips, Anna walked to the welcoming doorway and froze before pulling the hood of her cloak over her head. It was big enough to cover most of her face but left enough of her vision free so she could see where she was going. She didn't want anyone freaking out if they saw her out here, right? And if Elsa's story held any weight, the young woman didn't feel like seeing anyone from the village out here either.

_Just a quick pit stop, and then you've got to go back to Hans. He can help. He has to._

With a final breath of crisp, wintery air, Anna yanked the door open and quickly shuffled inside, a small bell going off at her entrance. Her eyes quickly scanned the shelves for anything of use and nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice called out.

"_Hoo-hoo_!" Her head snapped to look at a monstrously large man sat behind a comically small desk, a 100 watt smile visible beneath his bushy moustache and red cheeks. He wiggled his fingers in a wave at her.

"Big Summer Blowout!" He announced, gesturing with jazz hands to some of the stuff behind his counter, "Half off swimming suits, clogs, and a sun balm of my own invention, yah!" Between his heavy accent and Anna's muffled hearing from the thick fabric of her hood, she could barely understand what he was saying but smiled awkwardly back anyway.

"Uh, yeah, thanks but I was just wondering if you knew the way back into town. I-I, uh, got a little lost after the storm…" She lied, letting out an unconvincing chuckle as she finished. If he didn't believe her he hid it well and simply arched his fingers and gestured towards the door behind her.

"Of course! You go down the mountain for another 5 hours and you should be able to see the village from there." His tone retained the continuous friendly pitch but Anna felt her eyes nearly fall out of her sockets when he mentioned the time.

"5 hours!?" It felt as though she was making a hobby of repeating preposterous time measurements back at those who said them as of recent. Weird.

"If you're making the trip down there, you should probably get some more supplies, yah?" Motioning towards her bag with his hands, Anna looked down. She supposed it did look at little flat; there wasn't much for her to pack when she left. Anna mumbled out a half-hearted agreement, silently cursing businessmen and their constant ability to sell anyone anything, and shuffled over to one of the corners of the store which had what looked to resemble food stacked up on shelves. Her eyes travelled over the greying lumps of what she hoped were loaves of bread and grimaced. Anna didn't consider herself to be a picky eater but lines must be drawn somewhere.

There was a thumping from outside and muffled voices snapping at one another. Anna turned her head to the door slightly and raised an eyebrow, promptly jumping in surprise when Oaken's door blew open with such force it nearly yanked the bell off the wall by its string. The princess snapped her head back to the shelves before her and tried to calm her breathing.

_You're not here, you're not here. You are invisible. You are _translucent, _just breathe, damn it…_

There was a brief silence from whoever nearly wrecked the door that was followed by a gruff "Sorry…" and two sets of heavy footsteps thudding to the counter, the door slamming shut behind them. Anna chanced a look at the new customers who seemed to have not yet noticed her.

They were two men. Big. Both were wearing thick winter clothes and had scarves pulled up past their noses so only their heavy set eyes were visible. Anna swallowed hard and immediately felt a wave of dread crash into her. The man at the front of the duo pulled down his scarf to reveal a square, stubbly jaw and cracked it before speaking in possibly the gravely-est voice she had ever heard.

"We're lookin' for a girl." He stated simply, leering at Oaken who hadn't dropped the overly enthusiastic smile that seemed to be plastered onto his face. His accent was almost as thick as Oaken's and Anna recognised it as being that of the commoners. She felt her stomach flip at the mention of a girl and suddenly became confused as to why there were two village men up here looking for her and not her Hans. A chuckle came from the other, still masked man.

"Aren't we all?" He joked, his voice not being as rough as his companions. Said companion elbowed him in the ribs and he quickly shut himself up, rubbing his side with one hand and yanking down his scarf with the other. He sent a glare to his friend and rubbed his hairless chin. He must be younger than the other, no older than Anna herself probably. The older man turned his head to glare back at his partner and the young woman noticed that Oaken's smile faltered slightly and his eyes glanced over to her in the corner of his store.

Anna realised that the men still hadn't noticed she was here and pivoted herself around to face the door while keeping her eyes trained on the worried orbs of the storeowner. His eyes quickly glanced towards the door and back at her, twitching his eyebrows upwards in a silent plea for her to get out of here. But her legs were lead weights and curiosity drove her to keep her feet welded to the ground and see how the situation panned out.

Oaken quickly flicked his eyes back to the duo before him as they both turned back to him expectantly.

"Well?" The supposed leader accused, leaning forward to stand menacingly over the larger man who continued to smile up at him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I'm afraid I can't help you with that. But if there's anything else I can do for you, I'll be glad to help, yah?" His tone never shifted and Anna felt a sense of admiration for the man behind the counter. She then flinched when the villager slammed his gloved fist onto the wooden desk in anger and scowled.

"Don't be messin' with me, we have orders from Arendelle to bring the princess 'n' that monster of a queen back. If you're _hidin' _anythin'-"

"Oh no, my good fellow. I'm not hiding anything." Oaken confessed. He wasn't wrong, technically. Anna found herself shuffling as silently as she could along the front of the shelves behind her, eyes quickly darting from the door to the situation unfolding before her. Adrenalin was the only thing keeping the poor girl from collapsing onto the floor in a fearful mess of limbs.

_Almost there, c'mon, you can do this._

"Jus' leave 'im, there's no point in workin' yourself up over nothin'." The younger man whined, picking at his ear and flicking whatever he found at the wall. Anna grimaced and Oaken did the same, his arched fingers clenching together. Through her disgust, the young woman almost walked into some shelves. She internally screamed and managed to manoeuvre around them in a series of hops, windmilling arms, and shuffling feet, somehow not getting the attention of those men. In the midst of her flailing limbs, her hood had fallen down and her copper braids swung down since there was little she could do to stop them, but that didn't seem to matter right now. The door was in sight. She could do this. She could a_ctually _do this.

"Yeah, yeah, I guess you're right. Better get goin' then…" The older man grumbled, straightening up and moving to turn around. Anna froze in place, one leg raised mid-walk and looked suspiciously like a deer about to be hit by a sled. Oaken's eyes widened and he stood up quickly, nearly knocking over his desk with his size. Only then could Anna finally appreciate how large the gentle giant was. Apparently, it caught the interest of the other men as they both turned back around and stared up at him with mouths agape and eyes wide. Oaken was at least a head taller than the both of them.

"W-Wait a moment, my friends! Could I perhaps interest you in a trip to Oaken Sauna? You must be tired from your trip up here, yah?" He quickly walked around the side of his desk and ushered them towards a door towards the back of the shop, "Free of charge, I insist! You need your rest if you wish to catch these women you speak of, yah?"

"Uh… well, that's awful nice of ya but we don't got the time to-"

"O' course! We'd love to!" The younger of the men quickly cut his partner off and enthusiastically bounced to the door. Anna managed to uproot herself from the floor and quickly speed walk to the door, grabbing the handle with shaking hands and supressed a giggle of triumph.

_I made it!_

_I'm home free!_

_I'm-!_

_*DING~*_

As the door swung open, the sound of a bell echoed.

Anna's head snapped round and her widened eyes met the surprised ones of the three others in the corner of the room. There was a brief silence between them all, the only sound being the ticking of a coo-coo clock on the wall and the princesses heavy breathing. By the time she had managed to regain feeling in her limbs and launch herself into the snowy outdoors, loud shouts and thudding sounded from behind her.

"That's 'er!"

"Yeah, you don't say!? Get 'er you fuckin' dolt!"

Anna squealed as she rounded one of the wooden poles that held up the roof, someone slamming into it as she felt a hand graze one of her braids. It dawned on her all too suddenly that she didn't have a prayer of getting away, her stomach churning in fear and her eyes darted around the trees like a secret passage would just appear out of nowhere.

She ducked under a branch a felt her cape get caught on it, letting out a panicked growl as she yanked on it but only managed to tangle herself more. She fumbled with the clasp a few times before managing to unclip it from her heaving shoulders and continue running back up the mountain. Another loud curse from behind her, the wind of a missed hit brushing against her exposed neck.

"Damn it!"

A naïve happiness filled the young woman, the small victories over her pursuers giving her hope even as her feet stumbled over unseen rocks in the snow.

Her insides lurched however when a powerful arm coiled around her waist and pulled her to an ungraceful stop. She struggled and wiggled and writhed, all futile attempts to free herself from the iron grip of whichever man had caught her. On instinct, she sucked in a breath and opened her mouth to scream as if anyone would come, but was cut off by a hand smacking over her mouth. The glove smelt of horses and dung and she gagged against it.

"Don't you fuckin' dare, you little bitch." He spat into her ear. Hot saliva sprayed onto her face and she lurched her head away in disgust, glaring up at him as best she could from the awkward position. The other villager clumped into view.

"How didn't ya notice she were there?" Her captor questioned his companion and shook Anna slightly as if to prove his point. The other man snarled and rubbed a hand over his stubbly chin.

"Because I were talkin' to that ponce of a man while _you _were busy standin' there 'n' doin' nothin'!" He shot back, glaring at him a moment longer before rounding his eyes on Anna who was now trying to dig her fingernails through the younger man's sleeve and tear his arm off. She didn't notice how close the other had gotten before she felt his hot breath on her face, its stench invading her nose and making her glare right back at him.

His face split into an unfriendly grin revealing his yellowing teeth which only repulsed the girl more.

"Pretty one, ain't she?"

Anna raised an eyebrow quizzically as the man holding her chuckled, his hand sliding down her waist and onto her hip. A shiver of disgust went through her freezing body.

"Sure is," He pressed his nose into her hair and she felt him take a deep sniff. She suddenly began struggling against his restrictive arms again, feeling very much claustrophobic in his grip. Her legs kicked against his booted shins but it didn't seem to do any good as he laughed again and held her tighter against his chest, "Feisty, too!"

The princess froze completely at his next words.

"Ya don't think Prince Hans would mind if we 'ad a little _fun_ with 'er, do ya? I think we deserve a bit of a reward for all the shit ya put us through, _your highness_."

The words sent jolts of terror racing through every nerve in her body, icy cold fear oozing down her spine.

_Hans… Hans _sent _these men…?_

The two of them laughed boisterously as if the whole situation was a joke.

_Why would he…?_

"What he don't know don't hurt 'im," Added the older man, stepping closer still causing Anna to coil away from him as best she could but only managed to move herself further into the man behind her, "But first…" Something pressed against her stomach. Something cold and sharp.

Her eyes darted down and saw a flash of metal being held to her; a dagger.

"She's gonna show us where her freak of a sister is, aren't ya, sweetheart?" He cooed, pressing the blade through the fabric of her dress and dragging it down slightly to create a small hole. Cold, winter air seeped through the cut and the redhead shivered, hot tears springing to her eyes that she tried to blink away. Her eyes looked off to the side and her brows were furrowed as her captor removed his hand from her mouth and she clenched her jaw when the other immediately grabbed her face with his hand and forced her to look at him.

"_Aren't you._" The dagger was pressed harder, a shallow cut forming. Anna hissed and nodded once. The dagger was removed and she suddenly felt nauseatingly guilty; ratting her sister out after she had literally saved her from the brink of death twice and taken care of her all the while after. The tears she had tried to supress spilled down her cheeks and felt herself being dragged forward, up the mountain.

"Now that's a good girl." One of them said. She didn't know which but the comment made her heave anyway.

"She's up this way, ain't she? Ya seemed awful eager to get back up 'ere a minute ago." They both laughed again. Anna stared at the ground again and contorted her expression into as much of a regal mask as she could. If there was anything her lessons had taught her it was how to hide her emotions as a princess, no matter how much she wanted to break down sobbing into the snow.

* * *

**That was some pretty heavy stuff**

**I know I said I would update sooner with this chapter but I guess I just got kind of distracted... ****and a shit tonne of homework tbh**

**I don't know why my tutors feel the need to give me so much of it in the first few weeks of being back in the god awful place**

**Anyway, thank you for reading and all of the support you guys have been giving me, I really love it when I get an email telling me someone's followed/favorited/reviewed this story uvu**

**Mage**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

* * *

Elsa let out a strangled grunt as she yanked the wardrobe onto the floor, the sound of splintering wood going unnoticed by the panicked blonde as she ran both hands through her hair, grabbing fistfuls and tugging as she searched the floor with wild eyes for answers.

After being lulled to sleep by Anna's soothing hands, Elsa had been asleep for just under an hour before she had managed to roll herself off the couch and wake herself up in a tangle of quilt and scraggly limbs.

It had taken a few moments of rubbing her head and calling out her sister's name to realise that she was alone. Again. Of course, the panic hadn't set in until she had searched the house, the back yard, and opened the front door to find footprints leading away from the cabin and down the mountain. By that point Elsa's mind had gone through every grizzly possibility of Anna's whereabouts.

At first she didn't want to admit it, but all of the remaining evidence pointed in its favour; only one set of footprints, missing clothes and bag, how eager the princess was to make her sibling fall asleep. Anna had ran away. And so here she was, sitting cross legged on the bedroom floor with most of the furniture wrecked, pressing her palms into her eyes to squeeze the emotions out of them.

"Fuck…" She hiccupped, gritting her teeth in shame. She knew that she had no right to cry seeing as though all of this was her fault in the first place. She knew that she had no reasons other than her selfishness to want Anna to have stayed with her; she had told herself since the beginning that if Anna wanted to go back to Arendelle she would have let her but this… this was different.

_Is it?_

No, probably not.

Elsa let her arms fall to the ground with a thump, forcing herself to stare ahead.

Outside, snow fell from the sky at an alarming rate and Elsa simply stared at it through the window. There went her plan of following the footsteps.

_It's probably for the best that she left. You were not good for her anyway._

The queen hummed to herself in agreement, a deep sound that echoed through the room. The fire crackled uselessly in the other. She hadn't put it out yet in a hope that it would somehow mimic the warmth Anna's presence brought her but instead it only made her uncomfortably hot. With all her remaining willpower, the former queen stood on stiff legs and began to shuffle into the front room. She might as well put the fire out now seeing as though it was no longer needed. Besides, all it seemed to do was remind her how much of a freak she was for not needing it on the first place.

_No wonder she left._

She made it in front of the already dying flames and raised her hand to finish the job, her face void of emotion.

There was a knock at the door.

Elsa froze and her raised hand curled into a tense claw, the other fisting by her side. In her shock, she let out a blast of ice and missed the fire completely, instead causing spikes of ice to form on the chimney breast but her focus was on something else entirely. Her brain took a moment to spring into action and the first thing that came to mind was:

"_Anna!_" Her voice, completely differing from her morose tone, rose so quickly that it cracked, the woman now clambering over the couch to get to the door quicker. Her hand closed around the handle and she yanked it open with so much force the thing nearly flew off its hinges.

"Ann-!" The expression of joy on her face practically melted off at the sight before her.

"Step away from the door. Back up slowly."

Elsa stumbled backwards and stared wide eyed at the man before her as he quickly followed her into the house, another man appearing from behind him and slamming the door shut.

In his arms was Anna, facing her, with a dagger held dangerously close to her neck. The redhead stared back at her sister with guilt and desperation shining in her eyes. "I'm sorry." She mouthed, her lips trembling and Elsa felt her heart break. The man holding her sister captive said something but she payed no mind.

_Why is she apologising? What is she…?_

"I said, put you're 'ands down!" He pressed the tip of the dagger harder against Anna's neck who tensed up and whimpered, a small trickle of blood falling. The sight alone caused white hot rage to make a red haze fill Elsa's vision but managed to stop herself springing from where she stood to throttling him until his eyes bugged out. He pulled Anna back and raised his eyebrows as if testing her and Elsa stood still, not moving her eyes from the creature before her and breathing heavily while she tried to control the outburst that threatened to take over her rational mind.

_Don't be foolish. Do it for Anna. Do it for Anna…_

She slowly lowered her hands to her sides and clenched them into fists, casting her glare sideways to the other man who's hand hovered over his pocket. She guessed he too was carrying a knife.

"Now, here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna all calm down," He condescended, swaying both his and Anna's body in a bastardisation of a calming motion. Anna let out a sharp breath through her nose and stared at the floor, her eyebrows furrowing slightly, "Then, we're gonna _kill _you." Elsa narrowed her eyes and scowled.

"But before that," He quickly added, "I think we're gonna take that reward we was talkin' about…" Behind her, the other man chuckled in amusement and Elsa felt her stomach lurch as she turned her head to stare at him in confusion. His laughing only grew stronger at the look on her face.

_What…?_

Her head snapped back to stare forward and felt her body numb for a moment.

Anna grimaced and whimpered and squirmed as his disgusting mouth sucked on her neck. She clawed and racked her nails over the arm that held her waist and the other tried to shove his head away but it only seemed to spur him on.

A familiar screen of red started to fill the corners of her vision, her hands shook with contained power, her breaths shallow.

Someone was touching Anna. Her Anna. Without her permission.

No one else in the room seemed to anticipate what happened next, nor able to react quickly enough to do anything.

Elsa, charged with enough malice to make her feel like she could take on a whole army, surged forward with blazing eyes and felt her hands buzz with energy. She grabbed the man's arm that had encased her sister's waist and ripped it from her and quickly grabbed the other that held the dagger and dug her nails into the meaty flesh of his hand. In an uncharacteristic display of strength she wrenched them away from the form of Anna, who dropped to the floor and crawled away from the two of them while viciously rubbing her neck with the sleeve of her shirt, glaring at the man who violated her.

The man in question started down at Elsa with a mix of shock and fear, not expecting the lithe form of his former queen to be able to handicap him so easily.

Elsa kneed him in the stomach and relished in the groan of pain that met her ears as he dropped to his knees and hugged himself. With quick reflexes, the blonde grabbed the dagger from his loose grip and knelt down in front of the cowering man, pushing his shoulder back and leaving his torso exposed.

Beneath his untrimmed stubble, Elsa could see that his mouth was open in a silent plea for mercy and she almost laughed at him for even thinking about begging. She did stare at him for a few seconds though, drinking in the expression on his face before lunging the knife forward and stabbing him in the gut, her face flinching slightly with the effort.

There was a moment of silence before his scream sounded out. He squirmed around on the floor in pain while Elsa rolled her eyes and tutted, flicking the knife off to her side and under a set of drawers. She stood and kicked him in the stomach, almost laughing when he rolled over again and began crying.

_How pathetic…_

From behind her, Anna had managed to stand up on wobbly legs and watched the spectacle with the other man who seemed to shocked and scared to do anything other than stare at his partner being abused by Elsa with his jaw unhinged and eyes wide.

Anna leant against the wall and stared on too, but for different reasons.

She stared at her sister and how mirth brimmed in her eyes at every sob the defeated man before her let out. The calculated steps she made to avoid his thrashing limbs. The ease at which she destroyed another beings life should have been terrifying to the younger sibling, instead making her heart thud against her ribcage in the most wonderful of ways. She watched on in muted admiration as her sister pulled the man up by his arm and pressed the other to his neck and against the wall.

Anna continued to stare, a light blush forming on her cheeks. Of course, the redhead's inner turmoil of emotions went unbeknownst to Elsa who had now pressed a hand to the man's wound and looked on at the pathetic mess of a human before her. She cocked her head to the side and pressed down on the cut, gauging the flurry of emotions that ran across his face.

While Elsa hadn't fully accepted her powers she was very much open to experiment with them and now seemed like a perfect opportunity to test something out she had been wanting to try for some years now.

Without blinking, or even changing her expression, Elsa slowly began to seep jolts her magic into the wound and through the man's body.

It was barely even noticeable at first.

Gradually, his movements slowed and it dawned on him what exactly was going on. He opened his mouth to scream but only managed a few strangled choking noises, staring into Elsa's cold, blue eyes as a slow grin began to stretch across her lips. The fear in him intensified as he slowly lost feeling in his limbs, the blonde regaining that oh-so treasured feeling of power as she froze the man from the inside out.

It didn't take much to end a life, she had come to realise, which is why she felt somewhat sad as the movement beneath her gradually began to slow until nothing but a lifeless body slumped to the ground. Not as messy as the last one, but entertaining none the less.

Elsa stood and wiped her hands on the legs of her breeches, turning her head to the side when she heard the heavy breathing of her victim's partner behind her. She fully turned and stared at him as he held his knife towards her with both hands trembling, a look of broken rage gracing his features.

"You… You _evil fuckin' witch!_" With each word, he jabbed the blade forward and screamed, "_You're a freak! A freak o' nature! Just die already, you stupid bitch!_"

"Get away from her."

Both of them blinked and turned to face Anna who stood and stared at Elsa's attacker with possibly the deadest expression the former queen had ever seen on the younger girl. The man scoffed and turned his attention back to Elsa who continued to stare at Anna and noticed how her eyebrows furrowed when he ignored her.

"Shut the hell up, I can take 'er." He snapped, mumbling the last part to himself like it would make it so. Elsa saw his sudden movement in her peripheral and quickly snapped her eyes back in time to see him raise his hands above his head and bring them down in a direct hit to Elsa's head. Her eyes widened and she crossed her arms above her head, not being able to react fast enough to do anything other than stand there and wait for her demise.

Her demise which never came.

Instead, the resounding clang of metal hitting something filled her head.

"No, I don't think you quite understand," Anna's voice made her snap her eyes open and lower her arms, gaping dumbfounded at the scene before her. Anna held a candlestick above her head, glaring down at the disarmed man lying on the ground, "Get away from her."

He stared up at her sister and regret instantly flashed across his face before the butt of the candlestick was brought down on his head again and again. And again.

And again.

Anna dropped to her knees and continued the battering, not stopping even when he raised his arms to protect his head despite the fact that it did no good. Not stopping when a sickening crack emitted from his skull when a viciously heavy blow was brought down on his temple. Not when his arms dropped and his corpse fell limp beneath her sister. Not even when they both knew he was long dead, his head snapping from side to side with each blow, blood splattering up and onto the walls, Anna's face, her clothes. But she felt like she couldn't stop; she didn't _want _to stop. Finally having a physical object to take her pent up frustration on felt wonderful and she'd be damned if she was going to come to her senses any time soon and stop.

Elsa meanwhile, gazed down at her sister as she gave blow after blow to the dead man's bloodied corpse. She knew she should probably stop her before the stain in the rug became permanent but there was something strangely majestic in the way Anna seemed to move her whole body as she brought the candlestick down on his head; the way her chest heaved with every motion; the way noises of effort spewed from her blood spattered lips; the way her muscles strained against the tight fitting dress. Apparently all those tree climbing expeditions paid off.

"Anna." She managed, her voice cracking.

Her sibling didn't hear, or at least ignored her, the princess's movements becoming more frantic if anything.

"A-Anna!" Elsa attempted to capture her attention again, this time moving behind the girl to grab hold of her arms as they swung up to deliver another blow. She hooked her arms under her sisters and dragged her away from the body, noticing how she grunted and struggled to free herself to get back to her reliever.

"Anna, you need to stop. Anna, Anna, listen to me. _Anna!_" Holding the younger woman still long enough to speak into her ear, Elsa hissed her name to try and snap her out of whatever daze she was in.

All too suddenly, the girl in her arms stopped thrashing and stood completely still, the only movement from her being the heaving of her chest as heavy breaths escaped her. She held her arms out at her sides and dropped her weapon to the floor, another clang sounding out. The blonde paused a moment before delicately turning her sister around in her arms and staring at her blood splattered face, gasping at the sight. She hadn't expected to find such a thing so attractive.

"Anna, can you hear me? Are you okay?" She spoke as slowly as she could, rubbing a thumb over her sisters cheek but only managing to smear the blood around more. Lowering her head to try and look into Anna's eyes, Elsa gulped at their glassy appearance.

"Elsa…?" The redhead murmured. The woman in question jumped slightly but let out a relieved laugh and hugged her sibling's head to her chest.

"I couldn't… I couldn't stop, I just… kept hitting him…" Anna recapped in a sort of daze, slowly wrapping her arms around Elsa's waist to return the hug somewhat. Elsa hushed her and petted her copper hair but Anna continued anyway.

"Why didn't I… Why did it… feel… like that…?" Her words were muffled through the fabric of Elsa's shirt but the blonde managed to hear them, grinning into her sister's hair and giving her a squeeze.

"I know." She said simply, leaning down to kiss Anna's forehead before pulling herself from the embrace and holding the girl at arm's length. It looked like the gravity of her actions still hadn't hit her as Anna continued to stare at nothing in particular, her limbs moving slowly, and a look of utter confusion etched onto her face.

_Adorable_.

"We can talk about it later, okay? We have to get you cleaned up first." Elsa observed, rubbing Anna's cheek with the thumb again and wiping the blood that came with it on her own shirt.

"Okay…" Anna dumbly followed Elsa to the bedroom, nearly tripping over the mangled body she had created but not giving it a second glance. Elsa supported Anna through the door and took a glance at the blood seeping out into the carpet and sighed.

_Well it's definitely stained now…_

* * *

**R.I.P Villager #1 and Villager #2  
May they burn in the fiery depths of hell for all eternity**

**Well, that was a certainly short lived arc, wouldn't you agree?**

**Ah, yes, and here we see "Baby's First Murder", expect to be seeing a lot of those in the future and say 'hello' to Dark!Anna :D**

**Also, this chapter is out so shockingly quick because I spent all day writing it because the ideas just wouldn't leave me alone and now I'm going to have to write a 3 page essay for tomorrow before I collapse from exhaustion.**

**Mage**


	9. AN

Author's Note

* * *

**Firstly, I would like to apologise if I got your hopes up and made you think this was the next chapter.**

**It isn't.**

**Secondly, the reason why there has been such a big gap since the last chapter (2 weeks, pretty much) is because of both the sudden increase in stress brought on by the ludicrous amount of homework I've been getting AND my own incompetence.**

**I would like to apologise for the delay and remind you that no, I'm not dead (yet) and yes, the next chapter will be up hopefully soon.**

**I'm probably just going to delete this thing when I've uploaded the actual chapter so it can stop being such an eyesore.**

**Thank you for your patience uvu**

**Mage**


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